Roles and Responsibilities of Committees and Working Parties

Roles and Responsibilities of Committees and Working Parties (Recieved and adopted at the Full Council Meeting held on the 23rd April 2012

Working Parties - The Town Council has a total of nine working parties. These working parties do not have any delegated powers their role is to obtain information, including cost implications where applicable, and to discuss and agree recommendations, for presentation in the form of a report back to the parent committee. 

Committees - Membership of the four committees is reviewed on an annual basis at the Annual General Meeting held on the 4^th Monday in May each year. 

The General Purposes Committee has eleven members and is responsible for the following:- 

1. Town Council owned areas of land:-

Hardings Lane Recreation Ground
Local Play Areas
Cemetery
Garden of Remembrance
Allotment Gardens
Wesley Gardens
Downsview Drive 
Kings Johns Road play area and adjoining land (Transfer from Management Company in progress)
Barnaby Mead Mead play area
Ham Farm open spaces and play areas
Lodden Fields
Campion Close
Somerset Close
Ivy close
Maple Way
Sorrel Way
Gylass Way planted areas

2. Other Areas of land:-

St Mary's Churchyard
Le Neubourg Way grass verges and planted areas (On behalf of DCC Highways)

3. Amenity Land by Agreement with NDDC

Addison Close

4. Agency Agreements with Developers for maintenance of amenity land and planted areas

Persimmon Homes at Saxongate Shaftesbury Road
Persimmon Homes at Motcombe

5. Town Council owned buildings

Town Hall
Old Mortuary Building in the Garden of Remembrance
Cemetery Chapel
1 Chantry Fields (Community Office)
High Street Public Conveniences

Other Town Council Assets

Public seating as listed on the assets register
Horticultural Plant and Equipment
CCTV Cameras and monitoring equipment
Portable unit providing temporary changing facilities and public conveniences at Hardings Lane Recreation Ground
War Memorials at the High Street  car park and Milton on Stour 

6. Health and Safety

Ensuring all tasks carried out by the outside ground staff team complies with current Health and Safety legislation.

Ensure that Risk Assessments are in place for all tasks carried out by the outside ground staff

7. Administration

The committee provides detailed reports identifying costs involved when recommending to the Policy and Resources Committee funding approval for any areas of its responsibility.

The committee provides detailed reports for all of its meetings to Full Council.

The committee may instruct the Town Clerk to action correspondence, prior to a Full Council meeting, providing the content is for information only and the response will not interfere with any decision that Full Council may take, when receiving and adopting the report.

The Policy and Resources Committee has eleven members and is responsible for the following:-

1.  All matters of finance, inclusive of:-

Consideration of draft expenditure proposals, as prepared by the Proper Financial Officer and setting the Annual Precept.

Consideration of all requests for one off grant aid and financial support from outside bodies

Consideration of recommendations received from the General Purposes Committee for expenditure

Receiving quarterly financial statements from the Town Clerk, except for the quarterly budget analysis for Wages & Salaries which is presented to the Staff and Salaries Committee 

All banking transactions 

Receiving and approving all cheques for payment

Appointing authorised signatures for bank accounts

2. Service Level Agreements with other Town and Parish Councils.

3. The committee will provide detailed reports for all of its meetings to Full Council.

4. The committee may instruct the Town Clerk to action correspondence, prior to a Full Council meeting, providing the content is for information only and the response will not interfere with any decision that Full Council may take, when receiving and adopting the report.

5. The committee will review the Town Council's Standing Orders and Financial Regulations, Risk Assessment, Internal Audit and any relevant addendums on an annual basis.

6. The committee will review burial charges and allotment rents on an annual basis, prior to the annual precept meeting.

The Development Management Recommendations Committee has eleven members and is responsible for the following:-

1. To receive and make comments/recommendation on all Planning Applications direct to the Development Control Planning Department at NDDC and the Planning Department Dorset County Council as appropriate.

2. To receive and make comments/recommendations on Planning Control decisions.

3. To receive and make comments / recommendation on received appeals against planning decisions.

4. Any documentation, other than specific planning applications and/or appeals, should also be referred to the next available Policy and Resources Committee Meeting

The Staff and Salaries Committee has five members and is responsible for the following:- 

Staff recruitment

Staff contracts of employment

Disciplinary and grievance procedure

Staff performance appraisals

Quarterly monitoring of employment costs

All decisions taken by the parent committees then have to be ratified at the next meeting of the Full Council, before they can be implemented. This ensures that all members of the Town Council have the opportunity to comment on every decision taken, apart from comments on planning applications, where the committee has delegated powers to respond without ratification by Full Council in order to meet response deadlines.