Local Government Structure  

Hart, in accordance with the Local Government Act 2000, along with all other authorities in England and Wales, has had to change the way it is structured to make decisions. The old committee-style system has been replaced with a new form of executive decision-making based on a Leader and Cabinet structure.

The decision-making structure of Hart is divided into several tiers;

• Council
• Cabinet and the statutory committees
• Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Council (or Full Council as it is sometimes known) is the final decision-making forum for the majority of the 'big' decisions that the Council makes, including setting the Budget, Council Tax and acting as prime consultee on major Government documents. It can also receive recommendations from the next tier down (Cabinet and the statutory committees), which it either accepts, rejects or sometimes refers back for re-consideration.

Council meets once a month and all Members attend. It is a more 'formal' arena than most of the other types of meeting and is chaired by the Chairman of the Council (the civic head of Hart). It is at Council that Members can hear formal announcements from the Chairman on his/her activities, hear reports from the Chief Executive and hear statements from and question Members of Cabinet and the Leader. Members can also ask other questions of senior Members (Cabinet Members and Chairmen of Committees). The public may also ask questions through the Chairman provided they have followed the correct procedure.

At the Annual Meeting of Council, held at the beginning of every Municipal Year (which usually runs from May to April at Hart) it

• Elects the Chairman and Vice-Chairman
• Elects a Leader of the Council (the political head of Hart)
• Decides which councillors are going to sit on which committees.

Information on Cabinet can be found on a separate page, please refer to the Index.

Information on the Scrutiny Committee can be found on a separate page, please refer to the Index.

Hart also has a number of 'statutory' committees:

• Planning, which is responsible for carrying out the planning functions of the Council.
• Standards, which deals with the ethics and probity of councillors
• Licensing, which deals with the licensing functions of the authority and
• Staff and General Purposes, which deals with staffing, audit and other matters which, cannot be dealt with by either full Council or Cabinet.

Please refer to the Index for the Council's Meeting Structure.