Community Councils Scheme Review: Important dates coming up

MEETING DATES: TWO drop-in consultation sessions on Monday 7 August and Tuesday 15 August and the Teams meeting set for Thursday 17 August.**

Community Councillors are invited to ‘make initial contributions and suggestions regarding the existing Community Council scheme and boundaries and to ‘provide feedback and recommendations for any proposed changes that you believe would be beneficial’.

This invitation was discussed at the Members’ Board last Thursday. Here are some issues we think are worth your attention:

A] Community Council Boundaries

1. New community council wards:

• How many and where?
• On the basis of what growth projections for city expansion?
• What data sources are to be used?

2. Size of community council wards:

• On what basis will the size of community council areas be reviewed and targeted?
• What data sources are to be used?
• What intentions are there to reduce a wide dispersion (imbalance) in community council area ‘size’ (number of residents) across the city?
• What could be done to ‘rebalance’?

3. Boundaries:

• Boundary changes should be fully explained and justified to residents.
• What will be done to reshape boundaries, in order to reduce the incidence of community council ‘crossover’ into two (or even three) City Councillor electoral wards, so that the ‘mapping’ of a community council to one and only one (four-strong) group of City Councillors is tightened up? (A community council area perimeter should be bounded within a single electoral ward.)
• What measures will then be introduced to improve liaison and coordination across electoral wards and in turn across Localities?

B] Scheme for Community Councils

1. Minimum number of ‘elected community council members’ (2019 Scheme, Para 6.24):

• There is evident current strain on a number of community councils, stemming from a fall-away in the participation of active elected members towards or below the critical level of ‘half of the maximum permitted elected membership’.
• In light of that, what new flexible support measures can CEC Governance introduce to the Scheme rules in order to avoid (in such circumstances) the undue lapse of community councils into an ‘inactive state’ (whereby residents are then ‘disenfranchised’)?

2. Resourcing of a community council (2019 Scheme, Paras 11.9 and 11.11):

• Contemporary ‘support needs’ for a well-functioning community council nowadays centre on IT, on website maintenance and repair, on technical assistance with AV equipment for hybrid meetings, all alongside the minuting and reporting of community council proceedings.
• The absence of such support blunts a community council’s effectiveness in its core role and its ambition, especially when ‘something goes wrong’.
• The need for CEC operational support now goes well beyond ‘additional support services/resourcing, such as photocopying and distribution of community council minutes and agendas and (also) free lets of halls for community council meetings’, as offered in the 2019 Scheme Review.
• There is a case for a (much) stronger CEC commitment to dependable, core operational back-up of community councils’ governance and administration work.
• What new avenues of operational (and financial) assistance can CEC look to introduce in this current Scheme Review?

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/30693/scheme-for-community-councils

**Here are the dates, and the opportunity to put some meaningful questions to CEC.

Monday 7 August 2023
17.00-19.30
Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, EH8 8BG, Ground Floor, Room 15

Tuesday 15 August 2023
13.00-16.00
Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, EH8 8BG, Ground Floor, Room 15

Thursday 17 August 2023
17.00-19.30
Virtual meeting held via Microsoft Teams – if you would like to attend please make contact with CEC (by email to community.councils@edinburgh.gov.uk) no later than 14.00 on 17 August 2023 to confirm your attendance and request the link to join the session. 

The EACC website homepage is:

Edinburgh Association of Community Councils (edinburghcommunitycouncils.org.uk)

_______________________________________________

Edinburgh Association of Community Councils (EACC)

EACC Secretary; Ken Robertson

secretary@edinburghcommunitycouncils.org.uk