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ITEM EX10

EXECUTIVE – 7 APRIL 2004

TRANSPORT IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE – REVIEW OF DELEGATION ARRANGEMENTS

Report by Head of Democratic Services and Assistant Head of Transport

1. It is 18 months since the Executive agreed to create a Transport Implementation Committee to deal with individual highway and traffic schemes and bus subsidy decisions. Part of that decision was to review arrangements after 12 months of operation of the new Committee.
2. Reproduced in Annex 1 are the terms on which the Executive agreed the Committee should be set up.

Proceedings of the Committee

3. The Committee first met on 6 December 2002. There have been 11 meetings to date (approximately every 6 weeks) with 117 individual substantive items considered, averaging over 10 items per meeting. There have been 46 public speakers, averaging 4 per meeting, and a total of 51 local member addresses.
4. There have been few practical problems with the running of the Committee. Exercise of the delegated powers by the Committee is subject to the provisions of the Constitution, including "access to information" rules. These, together with the rules and conventions in Annex 1, set a clear framework for operational issues. Items are identified in advance in the Forward Plan and this helps to set realistic targets for report authors. Meetings are frequent enough to enable schemes to progress without undue delay and are timed so as take account of the deadlines associated with public transport contract reviews.

5. The format of the meetings has facilitated attendance by the individual project officers to present their reports and to answer questions on them rather than this being the preserve of senior officers.  The members of the Committee has been able to raise detailed questions about matters in response to their own concerns or those of local members and the public who have expressed views to the Committee.
6. No matters have been formally referred up to the Executive by the Committee, although a few items which were ostensibly within the Committee’s remit (notably major proposals for new controlled parking zone schemes in Oxford) have been submitted direct to the Executive at the request of the Executive Members for Transport and Sustainable Development.
7. Comments have been made from time to time about the principle of the Executive’s powers being vested in only two of its members. However this should be viewed against current legislation and government guidance which sanction the placing of even major decisions in the hands of individual members of an Executive. We are not aware of substantial objections to the manner in which the Executive’s functions are discharged by the Committee.

Conclusion

8. Without doubt the Committee has relieved the Executive of a considerable amount of non-strategic business, which in turn has allowed the Executive to concentrate more on its strategic priorities. The resource effects of servicing an additional body have to a certain extent been offset by the reduction in the amount and scope of business requiring to be referred to the full Executive.
9. he procedural mechanisms governing the operation of the Committee appear to work satisfactorily. The dynamics of a Committee with only two members afford a more "informal" atmosphere for public speakers and consequently a number of potentially contentious items which had created much local interest have been dealt with expeditiously and with a greater degree of acceptance than might otherwise have been the case.

RECOMMENDATION

10. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to confirm the continuation of the Transport Implementation Committee with the same powers and subject to the same rules and conventions as previously agreed for the Committee under Executive Minute 355/02.

DEREK BISHOP
Head of Democratic Services

RICHARD DIX
Assistant Head of Transport

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officers:
Graham Warrington (01865 815321)
Richard Dix (01865 815663)

February 2004

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