To receive the following question in accordance with Council procedure rule 33.
Question from Councillor Mocky Khan to the Leader of the council, Councillor John Cotton:
"Please can the Leader explain the recruitment process for selecting the Chair of the Didcot Garden Town Management Board? Was it flawed given that Elizabeth Paris has decided not to take up the post, and what is going to happen now?"
Minutes:
Question from Councillor Mocky Khan to the Leader of the council, Councillor John Cotton:
"Please can the Leader explain the recruitment process for selecting the Chair of the Didcot Garden Town Management Board? Was it flawed given that Elizabeth Paris has decided not to take up the post, and what is going to happen now?"
Answer
In response Councillor Cotton stated that the Didcot Garden Town Project Board had agreed that any potential independent Chair would need to have previously held a senior level position in either the public or private sector and be:
· politically neutral,
· willing to take on the role in a non-remunerated capacity, and
· capable of mobilising support for the Didcot Garden Town amongst key public and private stakeholders, and the local community.
Relatively few people fit these criteria and Elizabeth Paris was identified as one such person and when approached to determine whether she would be willing to put herself forward for the role of Chair she confirmed she would. As a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Oxfordshire it was always known that she would not be able to assume the role, if any activity related to Didcot Garden Town was likely to bring disrepute upon the office of the Lord Lieutenant - this eventuality was considered unlikely.
However, following the publication of an article in a local newsletter by certain Didcot Town Councillors claiming that Elizabeth Paris should not take on the role of Chair because it somehow clashed with her role as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant, she decided that becoming the centre of a debate on the rights or wrongs of her appointment, due to her position as Deputy Lord Lieutenant, was indeed likely to bring the office of the Lord Lieutenant into disrepute. She therefore reluctantly felt obliged to withdraw her interest in becoming Chair of the Didcot Garden Town Project Board.
The decision was forced upon her and she would be extremely difficult to replace, and doing so may take a considerable period of time.
Regarding the future, it has become clear in recent weeks that the Government may be willing to provide Oxfordshire and Didcot Garden Town with some infrastructure funding. However, the exact amount and terms of this are yet to be finalised and any funding agreement may well require local authorities to put in place robust delivery mechanisms that ensure these funds are used to accelerate key infrastructure development projects as quickly as possibleand to demonstrate increased political oversight.
If this is the case, the governance arrangements for Didcot Garden Town may well need to be re-assessed. If this is the case, finalising the governance arrangements for Didcot Garden Town, and the appointment of a new Chair, will inevitably be delayed pending clarification on the nature and terms and of the central government funding needed to implement key projects within the Garden Town Delivery Plan.
Supplementary question
In response to a supplementary question Councillor Cotton confirmed that there would be a delay in the appointment of a Chair until the outcome of the discussions with the Government.