How the Council Works

At full Council on 18 April 2011, councillors agreed changes to our decision making process. The changes came into affect on 19 May 2011. The changes include:

• Setting up area forums in place of area committees to deal with local issues.
• Each councillor receiving an annual budget of £1,500 to spend in their ward.
• Splitting the decisions presently made by the City Executive Board so that many of them are decided by individual Executive Board Members, with advice from Council officers and subject to call-in by Scrutiny.
• Setting up two politically balanced area planning committees (West and East), each consisting of nine Members, to deal with planning applications at monthly meetings.

West area planning committee wards
North, St Margaret's, Summertown, Wolvercote, Carfax, Hinksey Park, Holywell, Jericho & Osney, Iffley Fields, St Clements and St Mary's.

East area planning committee wards
Barton & Sandhills, Churchill, Headington, Headington Hill & Northway, Marston, Quarry & Risinghurst, Blackbird Leys, Littlemore, Northfield Brook, Rose Hill and Iffley, Cowley, Cowley Marsh and Lye Valley.

New Governance Arrangements

The Council has been consulting upon new governance arrangements. Adoption of new governance arrangements is a requirement in law. Full Council, on 18 October 2010, considered the outcome of consultation and decided to adopt the new style ('strong') leader and cabinet model.

The arrangements needed to support the new model (ie the Constitutional changes) have to be made available to the public for a six week period. Those arrangements are set out in Annex 3 to the report considered by Full Council. That report and its Annexes are available to download below. Full Council will take the final decision to implement the new arrangements on 13 December 2010.

New Governance Arrangements - Report to City Executive Board (38kB PDF)
New Governance Arrangements - Annex 1 (15kB PDF)
New Governance Arrangements - Annex 2 (21kB PDF)
New Governance Arrangements - Annex 3 (35kB PDF)

Oxford City Council

Oxford City Council is a District Council, with responsibilities for running services such as local planning, housing, environmental health, electoral registration, refuse collection, leisure and parks services, markets and fairs, tourism and cemeteries. Visit our About Us page for further details on the two-tier system of local government in Oxford.

City Councillors

Oxford City Council is composed of 48 Councillors, representing 24 Wards (two Councillors for each Ward), with half elected two years in four. Councillors are democratically accountable to residents of their Ward.

The overriding duty of Councillors is to the whole community, but they have a special duty to their constituents, including those who did not vote for them. To find out who your councillors are, which wards all councillors represent, and the current political make-up of the council, visit our Councillors page.

The Decision-making process

Oxford City Council has a constitution which sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made, and the procedures which are followed, to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people. Visit our Constitution page to view our constitution online.

The decision-making structure has four key elements, as shown below:

1. The City Executive Board - A cabinet of councillors and a leader who will provide clear and accountable leadership.
2. Full Council - Decides on policies, budgets and elects the executive.
3. Overview and Scrutiny committees - These examine and review decision-making at all levels.

Visit our Council Meetings page for committee meeting agenda, reports and minutes.

Page last reviewed 20 May 2011