Council to trim down committee
A “large and unwieldy” council committee will be slimmed down and could have its name changed after town councillors accepted reform plans.
Wellington’s Promotions and Liaison Committee currently consists of seven councillors and representatives of business, civic and community groups.
Under the plans, just the councillors would remain on a “nimbler” promotion-focussed group while the other members’ “liaison” function would be carried out elsewhere.
Councillor Stephen DeLauney, who chairs the Policy and Resources Committee and proposed the change, said the committee’s current dual roles were incompatible and many of its members “just sort of appeared and continued to attend”.
The committee, which also has seven members, voted unanimously in favour.
The town clerk will draw up new terms of reference for the committee, which will go to a future Wellington Town Council meeting for approval.
Organisations currently represented on the Promotions and Liaison Committee include Walkers are Welcome, Friends of Bowring Park and the Wellington Orbit.
Introducing his proposal at the remote meeting, Councillor DeLauney said: “I have to admit the current promotions committee [sic] has always bothered me. It’s a bit of a large and unwieldy committee.
“But I think the main problem is that it tries to do two things. One, it attempts to successfully maintain a programme of events to promote the town, but secondly, it also attempts to carry out the liaison function.
“It’s the liaison function that is the reason we invite members of local community groups and business representation. But even that is a bit hit-and-miss. I look at some of the people who are currently on and I ask questions of our staff, ‘Who exactly appointed them?’
“It would appear, for most of them, no-one appointed them at all, they just sort of appeared and continued to attend. So that, to me, isn’t even carrying out liaison very successfully because we’re not having a cross-section of businesses and community groups throughout the town.”
He said Love Wellington, under Regeneration Director Sally Themans, holds regular open meetings with businesses.
“They allow all businesses to attend and put their view on what has happened, what we should be doing,” Councillor DeLauney, a Liberal Democrat who represents the Shawbirch ward, said.
“What I would like to do is split these functions and have a promotions committee of seven councillors and the liaison part of the job handed over to something like the liaison Ms Themans does.
“So we would invite representatives from all community groups, not just the few we are in contact with at the moment. We’d get a much wider feel across the council about how well we’re serving them.”
