To receive the above update.

Councillor Cannon, Vice Chairman of the Community Governance Review (CGR) Working Group, said the first stage of consultation was completed with 69 responses. 4 responses were received from parish councils, 6 from local organisations and a few responses from businesses, the Windsor Town Council (WTC) steering committee representatives and local political parties. Redacted responses were to be published on the borough’s website by the end of November 2020. There would be a greater response rate in the second stage of the consultation.

The CGR Working Group was tasked to decide what to put forward for a second stage of the consultation, which would be sent to all households that would be impacted in future by the proposed WTC. The Working Group was to decide the area to be included in the WTC, boundaries, wards, naming of the communities and the number of Councillors to be elected and timings of the elections. The physical and legal power transfer, asset transfer, constitutional approach and the calculation of the precept was also to be decided.

There was an option to have the elections in 2022 for a one-year period and the consequential effects were to be reviewed by the Working Group. A draft recommendation was to be compiled in January 2021, ready for Full Council on 23 February 2021. The final recommendation would be made in late July 2021, to be decided at Full Council.

John Webb commented that he understood the CGR Working Group had only looked at one example of a CGR by another council, and in this case the CGR had concluded not to set up a town or parish council. He therefore asked why only one area review was chosen. Councillor Cannon said several examples were presented by the officers, and this was compliant to the guidelines. John Webb was advised to contact Suzanne Martin, Electoral & Information Governance Services Manager, if there was a concern regarding the process.

Ed Wilson said 69 responses represented less than 0.1% of those affected by a potential WTC and asked for a breakdown of the data that showed how many residents from unparished areas responded to the consultation.

Councillor Davies said the legal officer advised that the response rate was enough and was a sound database and that all respondents would be contacted directly for the second stage of the consultation. Councillor Cannon said the second stage of the consultation would likely have a higher response rate and the first stage of the consultation was only to review the appetite for a WTC and not to decide if a WTC should be formed.

Richard Endacott asked for the comparison of response rates from other consultations open at the same time as the WTC consultation to be shared.

ACTION: Members of the CGR Working Group to request legal advice on the robustness of 69 responses for the stage one of the WTC consultation.

ACTION: The comparison of response rates from other consultations open at the same time as the WTC consultation to be shared.