District to overhaul structures after residents back change in referendum

West Dorset District Council is to overhaul its committee structures after residents backed change in a referendum on the authority’s governance arrangements.

The referendum, which was triggered by a petition, asked voters ‘How would you like West Dorset District Council to be run?

There was a 32% turnout. A total of 16,534 people voted for the option to change to the council being run by one or more committees made-up of elected councillors.

The other option – the current position where West Dorset is run by a leader who is an elected councillor chosen by a vote of other elected councillors – attracted 8,811 votes.

The changes are to be implemented in May 2017. West Dorset said: “The development of this outline will be carried out in the year ahead and changes to the constitution drawn up.”

Features are to include:

• A Strategy Committee will replace the Executive Committee. “This committee’s size will be decided by the full council, but it could have a larger membership than the current seven”.
• The new Strategy Committee will also be politically proportionate, “which means that seats are allocated in accordance with party size”. West Dorset District Council currently has 30 Conservatives and 12 Liberal Democrats.

Cllr Anthony Alford will continue as Leader until tomorrow’s meeting of full council (12 May) when members will choose the Leader for the year ahead.

Cllr Anthony Alford said: “All councillors across our council will continue to work hard for the people of West Dorset whatever committee system is in place. We look forward to continuing to serve our communities.”

He added: “The costs were regrettable, but we received a petition signed by over 6,000 people and under the law that triggered a referendum which required us to give the rest of the 80,000 electorate the democratic right to decide if they wanted the council to have different committee structures. We did all we could to limit costs and saved about £50,000 by holding the vote at the same time as the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.”

West Dorset said that in a separate development arising from work together with its colleagues in the Dorset Councils Partnership, certain changes would be considered at Full Council on 12 May “to streamline governance arrangements and bring them into alignment with our partners”.

The changes to the constitution had been drafted and could be implemented immediately, it added.