Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel meets for 1st public meeting

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (created earlier this year) now has a scrutiny panel called the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel.

As regular readers of this blog will know, Knowsley provides the administrative support for meetings of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and its calendar of meeting can be viewed on Knowsley’s website, Merseytravel (now part of the Combined Authority) sorts out its own meetings and has its own calendar of public meetings on its own website and now the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel is administered by Halton Council and you can view their calendar of its meeting here.

From a media perspective, the same public body having three different calendars for its meetings is somewhat unusual but there you go.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 29th October 2014 Part 1

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel 29th October 2014 Part 2

The meeting itself only lasted 24 and a half minutes (the meeting took longer than it should have due to a fire alarm test). The agenda was short so I’ll reprint it here with links to the eight reports:

1. Appointment of Chair and Vice-Chair
2. Appointment of Members to the Combined Authority’s Audit Committee

Additional documents:
Part 4 Section B Audit Committee, item 2

3. Role and Responsibility of the Combined Authority
4. Role of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel
5. Development of a Work Programme
6. Combined Authority Forward Plan
Additional documents:
Forward Plan, item 6
7. Calendar of Meetings

One interesting matter to note of local interest is that before the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Scrutiny Panel had its first public meeting, one of its three (now reduced to two) representatives from Wirral Council (Cllr John Hale from the Conservative Group) had resigned.

That left Cllr Anita Leech as the only councillor from Wirral Council at its first meeting.

1. Appointment of Chair and Vice-Chair

Appointment of Chair
Cllr Kevan Wainwright (Hough Green, Halton Borough Council, Labour) was the only nomination for Chair.
Cllr Kevan Wainwright was elected as Chair.

The Chair thanked the other councillors for electing him and asked for apologies for absence. Apologies were given for Cllr Mike Sullivan (Labour, Wirral Council), Cllr Andy Burns (Labour) and Cllr Mark Dowd (Labour).

Cllr Anita Leech (Labour, Wirral Council) pointed out that Cllr John Hale (Conservative, Wirral Council) had resigned. The Chair replied that they were waiting for the [Wirral] Conservative [Group] to nominate a new councillor from Wirral [Council].

Appointment of Vice-Chair

Nobody made any nominations for Vice-Chair. So the Chair asked for nominations for Vice-Chair for a second time in saying “Come on ladies and gentlemen”. Cllr Andy Moorhead was proposed as Vice-Chair by Cllr Anita Leech and this nomination was seconded. There were no other nominations for Vice-Chair so Cllr Andy Moorhead became Vice-Chair.

The Chair congratulated Cllr Andy Moorhead on his election to Vice-Chair.

2. Appointment of Members to the Combined Authority’s Audit Committee

The Chair asked for nominations.

A councillor said, “Can I move *** councillor, *** ****?” The asterisks represent what I couldn’t hear as the councillor wasn’t close enough to their microphone. This nomination was seconded. This unknown person was appointed to the Audit Committee. They were all in favour.

The Chair pointed out that they needed a second nomination.

One of the male councillors present (that was not the Chair) nominated himself, he said, “I’ll self-nominate.” The Chair thanked him for his self-nomination. They were all in favour.

The rest of the meeting was discussion of the reports linked to above and can be watched in the two video clips above.

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