Apologies were received from Councillors Joshua Chapman and Councillor Robert Benham who were substituted by Councillors Jason Frost and Dilip Patel respectively.

Also in attendance were Councillors John Tyler and Christopher Wilkins.

Members are invited to disclose any interest in any of the items on the agenda at this point of the meeting. 

Members may still disclose any interest in any item at any time prior to the consideration of the matter.

There were no declarations of interest.

Consideration was given to the report of Andrew Beesely, Head of Democratic Services detailing the impact of the Boundary Commission Review and the need for members of the Governance Committee to determine and recommend their preferred option to Full Council.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) is undertaking a review of the London Borough of Havering’s local government electoral arrangements. The outcome of the review will be implemented in readiness for the 2022 Council elections.

The review forms two parts. The first part determines the Council size. In September 2019, Full Council recommended to the Commission that it retain its existing cohort size of 54. The Commission subsequently informed the Council that it was minded to agree to the proposal.

The second part (Part 2) is concerned with determining the warding arrangements in terms of the number of wards and the number of representatives of each ward which make up the Council, based on statutory criteria.

 An officer working group has prepared a number of options for the Governance Committee to consider.

The Chief Executive, Andrew Blake-Herbert, together with the Head of Democratic Services gave a presentation to the Committee

The Electoral Review undertaken by the LGBCE will take into account the number of Councillors in the Borough and the warding arrangements.  The warding arrangements will deal with the number of wards, the ward boundaries, the number of councillors elected to each ward and the names of each ward.

Submissions for Part 2 of the process dealing with the warding patterns must be made by 09/03/2020.  Officers have attended training with the LGBCE and the early indication has been that there is a tolerance of + or – 2 Councillors to the number of 54 for the purposes of the Part 2 process.

Four options for Part 2 have been made available on the Council’s website and members of the public can feed into this and make recommendations to the Boundary Commission supporting any of these options or indeed suggesting their own. When the LGBCE determine the warding patterns they take into account the following criteria:

·       Electoral Equity for Voters

·       Community Identities and interests and

·       Effective and convenient Local Government.

The officer working group produced a suite of 4 options for the consideration of the Governance Committee though there may be others put forward by members of the public and community groups etc.  These will all be considered and it was noted that the deadline for public submissions was on 02/03/2020.

The Governance Committee will be asked to recommend its preferred option to Full Council on 4^th March, 2020.

Officers have used current and predicted data/GSI mapping technology to formulate the options.  Data and maps are available on the London Borough of Havering website.  Consideration has been given to past and present warding patterns; polling districts; approved developments; population forecasts; key local infrastructure; natural boundaries, such as railways, rivers and roads; public health data; Ordinance Survey maps; and on the ground sense checks.

An overview of all  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.