Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Board considered a report of the Town Clerk concerning a proposal to elect a second Deputy Chairman and subsequent Terms of Reference change for the Board.

The Chair gave context for the report advising that the proposal was being made following discussions at the recent Nominations Committee meeting. It was felt that the Centre was in a unique situation and period of significant change, plus the Board had an almost 50/50 split in terms of its membership between elected and external members. The two Deputy Chairs would operate in the same way as they did on the Audit and Risk Management (ARM) Committee whereby one Deputy Chair would be an elected Councillor and the other would be an external Member, and both would provide support for the Chair and Centre. The Chair highlighted the recommendation that this new role be trialled and reviewed after one year.

A Member welcomed new talent on the Board but voiced caution against there being a split between the elected and external members and effectively creating two separate Boards. The Chair responded that the aim was to bring everyone together and this was a fruitful opportunity to integrate elected and external Members on how the City Corporation operated.

A Member who also sat on the ARM Committee was supportive of the idea and said it worked well. Members voiced their support and felt that it was a sensible opportunity for joint work and accelerating other ideas put forward at the Board’s informal Members session in February. It was noted that there needed to be a clear expectation of how the workload would be shared between the two Deputies and what the expectations were.

RESOLVED - That:-

·         the Policy & Resources Committee be asked to recommend to the Court of Common Council the election of a second Deputy Chairman on the Barbican Centre Board from amongst its external Members;

·         the terms of reference of the Board, subject to any comments, be approved for submission to the Court in April 2021 as set out in appendix 1.