Carl Sargeant, Minister for Local Government and Communities
This was published under the 2011 to 2016 administration of the Welsh Government
The Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Bill has been laid today.
The Bill has been introduced to improve democratic processes concerning local government, in particular the operation of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales. This is in response to the findings of the Mathias Review of the Commission’s electoral review process, which was published in June 2011.
The Bill makes provision to:
a)reform the organisation and functions of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales;
b)recast and consolidate existing local government provisions in relation to the Boundary Commission and therefore progress the development of a Welsh Statute Book;
c)amend the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 in relation to the responsibilities of the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales and the structure of local authority audit committees;
d)improve the public’s access to information concerning town and community councils;
e)amend Part III of the Local Government Act 2000 to facilitate the creation by local authorities of joint standards committees; and
f)enable councils who wish to separate the ceremonial and civic functions associated with the council chairman or mayor from those of presiding over meetings of the council.
I shall be making a legislative statement in Plenary tomorrow to introduce the Bill.
A White Paper consultation entitled ‘Promoting Local Democracy’ was published for a consultation between 17 May 2012 and 3 August 2012.
Today, I am publishing a summary report of the responses. This report can be found on the Welsh Government’s website at the following link:
http://wales.gov.uk/consultations/localgovernment/promlocdemocracy/?skip=1&lang=en
Each of the 91 consultation responses received will be published on the web site shortly.