The Cabinet is the Council's main decision-making body, responsible for providing effective strategic leadership.
Cabinet meetings are held at Shire Hall, Market Place, Warwick. Meetings are video and audio recorded and subsequently uploaded on our YouTube channel.
Videos will appear shortly after the meeting takes place, and the recording of the meeting will be kept on YouTube for later viewing. Interested parties may also register to speak at the meeting.
Broadcasts of the meeting will be available for 12 months, after which, they will change to a private video.
All meetings are public, except where there are confidential or exempt items and these are likely to be considered in private session.
Cabinet members
Councillors on the Cabinet are also known as portfolio holders.
Several Council officers usually attend to give advice on specific matters or record decisions.
All Warwick District Councillors receive a complete set of Cabinet papers (including confidential or exempt items). The Chairs of the Council's Scrutiny Committees, along with 'observers' appointed by the Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour parties also attend the meeting as non-voting members. Any Warwick District Councillor who is not a member of the Cabinet can attend as a non-voting observer and, with the consent of the Leader (who normally chairs the meeting), can address the Cabinet.
Agenda
Copies of the agenda for the Cabinet are published at least five clear working days before the meeting.
The Cabinet agenda
As the Council offices and libraries are currently closed, the Council is unable to provide paper copies of documents at these locations. All documents are available on our website, if you need assistance to locate them please email committee@warwickdc.gov.uk or call 01926 456114 .
How is the agenda organised
There are usually 4 parts to the agenda:
- An administrative part - covering Declarations of Interest and, where appropriate, the confirmation of the minutes of the previous meeting(s).
- Principal items - a range of items covering many aspects of the Council's work that will be discussed and voted upon.
- General reports - these are relatively non-contentious and often fairly technical decisions, which will be voted for together unless any member of the Cabinet wishes to discuss a particular item.
- Reports containing exempt or confidential information - these are items which need to be considered but, for legal reasons, must be discussed in private. The Cabinet must formally decide to exclude the public and press.
Decisions of the Cabinet
There are two types of decisions:
- On matters where the Cabinet does not have powers delegated to it by Council. These will be recommendations to the Council.
- Decisions made under powers delegated to the Cabinet by the Council. In such cases, the relevant agenda will clearly indicate these item(s).
After the meeting
All Councillors are notified of the decisions taken, normally by the end of the next working day.
From 5.00pm on the fifth clear working day after decisions are published, those decisions which are made under delegated powers begin to be implemented, unless they are "called in". Other decisions which are recommendations have to wait to be confirmed by the Council before being implemented. The minutes of meetings are produced by the Committee Services team and are made available online, usually with the agenda for the next meeting.
What is "call in"?
As stated above, decisions are not implemented until the end of the fifth clear working day after decisions have been published. This gives all Councillors a chance to review the decisions taken.
There is a procedure where Councillors can "call in" decisions during the five-day period. If a decision is "called in", it is not implemented until it has been referred to the appropriate Scrutiny Committee who will decide whether the matter should be referred back to the Cabinet, on to the Council or to take no further action. A decision can only be called in once.
Further information and contact details
For more detailed information about the role and responsibility of the Cabinet please see the council's constitution.
If you have any questions, please contact us at committee@warwickdc.gov.uk