Council

The Council is responsible for all functions and services administered or delivered in its name.   Some of the Council's functions may only be exercised by meetings of the full assembly of Councillors, whilst authority to deal with others may be delegated to Committees or Officers.   The following table demonstrates how the Council operates in relation to its Committees and the remaining part of this Section describes the functions Council has delegated to its Committees. Such arrangements do not in any way prevent the Council from exercising all or any of the delegated functions provided that the right to withdraw delegations must be subject to any third party rights consequent upon a Committee’s or Sub-Committee’s decision. Council reserves to itself the following powers:   a) Adopting and changing the Council Constitution, subject to the delegation to the Monitoring Officer to make consequential changes arising from Council decisions, changes in the Management Structure or new or amended legislation; b) Approving and adopting the policy framework and strategies set out in Article 4 of the Constitution; c) Considering all proposals which seek to establish new strategy or policy, matters which the Council has resolved to itself or any matter which seeks to propose a significant departure from existing policy. d) Approving the revenue budget capital programme, supplementary estimates and revised revenue budge, setting the council tax and authorising the treatment of reserves and balances; e) Approving or adopting a plan or strategy for the control of borrowing, investments or capital expenditure, or for determining the authority’s minimum revenue provision; f) Agreeing and/or amending terms of reference for committees, sub-committees and forums, deciding on their composition and making appointments to them including the appointment of Chairs and Vice-Chairs; g) Approving Membership of, and appointing representatives to, outside bodies and approved conferences h) Adopting a scheme for members allowances, following receipt of recommendations from the Independent Remuneration Panel; i) Confirming the appointment or dismissal of the Head of Paid Service, Corporate Director, Monitoring Officer or Chief Financial Officer j) Making arrangements for the discharge of any of the Council’s functions by another local authority or a joint committee with other authorities; k) Making, amending revoking, re-enacting or adopting bylaws and promoting or petitioning against any bills in parliament l) Approving any proposals relating to local government areas and the transfer, conferment or withdrawal of powers of local authorities; m) Matters relating to the variation of parliamentary and local government electoral areas and representation; n) Considering petitions where this is required under the Petitions Scheme. o) Considering reports of statutory officers i.e. from the Chief Financial Officer or Monitoring Officer. p) Considering the reports of the Head of Paid Service in relation to organisational review and resources q) Adopting the District Council’s Code of Conduct for elected Members