The Leader of the Council is elected by the City Council and is responsible
for all of the executive functions of the Council – including
most major decisions about service delivery within the over-arching
policies and budget set by the City Council. He / She can personally make these decisions or
choose to delegate them, including to the Executive Board.
The Leader of the Council appoints councillors
to sit on the Executive Board and allocates specific areas of
responsibility, known as ‘portfolios’. These councillors are
known as ‘the Executive’ and collectively take
decisions as an Executive Board.
Individual Executive councillors may work with Council officers and
others to develop policy within their portfolio
which then comes to Executive Board for approval.
A decision is referred to as a ‘Key
Decision’ if it will result in the Council incurring
expenditure or making income or savings of £1,000,000 or
more, or if it will have a significant impact on two or more wards
in the City. The intention to take a
Key Decision is published in advance in the ’28 Day
Notice’. By
law the Executive is not allowed to take certain decisions, such as
those about planning or licensing – these non-executive
decisions are taken by committees set up by the City
Council.
The Executive Board meets monthly and
is chaired by the Leader of the
Council.
Meetings are open to the public.
The ability to take decisions on certain
issues within their portfolio has been
delegated to individual Executive councillors and, in some
cases, to individual Council officers.
This individual decision making takes
place outside of Executive Board meetings and decisions are
published on the Council’s website.