Wrexham Council Executive Board Formed – Lead Member Roles Still Unknown

The Leader and Deputy Leader of Wrexham Council were approved by Councillors today along with the Executive Board – however who will be taking on a Lead Member portfolio has yet to be formally confirmed.

Last week Wrexham.com reported on proposals to form a coalition council made up of members from Cllr Mark Pritchard’s Independent Group, the Conservatives and Cllr David A Bithell’s Wrexham Independent Group was on the cards

Not a full house, apologies given for Cllrs Alun Jenkins, Ronnie Prince, Terry Evans and Kevin Hughes. Rules of WCBC meetings being read out

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 24, 2017

Perhaps unsurprisingly Cllr Mark Pritchard has returned to the role as Leader of Wrexham Council – a position he has served in since 2014. He was formally proposed to the role by Cllr David Griffiths, with leader of the Wrexham Independent Group, Cllr David A Bithell seconding the recommendation.

No other councillors were put forward for the role.

During the voting process 33 councillors voted in favour of the recommendation, 11 voting against and there were three abstentions.

Councillors vote: Indies / Conservatives support 33, Labour against 11, Plaid Cymru abstain 3. Cllr Pritchard is Council Leader!

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 24, 2017

The meeting then moved onto electing a Deputy Leader – a role which had previously been filled by Ian Roberts.

Cllr Pritchard put forward the leader of the Conservative Group, Cllr Hugh Jones to take on the role as Deputy Leader of the Council. This nomination was seconded by Cllr Paul Rogers.

Again the nomination went to the councillors for the vote – with 33 voting in favour, 11 against and four abstentions.

Deputy Leader Nominations: Hugh Jones. No other nominations, so vote – same as last time. Appears unaligned Mike Davies abstained on both.

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 24, 2017

It has been anticipated that Lead Member portfolios would be confirmed today, however this wasn’t the case.

Speaking to the re-elected Council Leader at the end of the meeting we were told that the details were ‘in translation’ and would be released once that process was completed.

No details of the draft resolution were made public that we are aware of before the meeting, and despite the above pictured document being circulated to all Councillors and approved in the meeting, Councillor Wynn was distinctly cagey when leaving the chamber on both if he was on the Executive Board and what his role would be. Cllr Wynn did eventually confirm he was ‘on the top table’ but would not say what his portfolio would be.

We then managed to acquire a copy of the draft resolution and made the above picture of the resolution public via twitter. Some opposition Councillors on the floor told us that the first they knew of the new Executive Board was when they entered the chamber and saw the draft resolution.

Five names on the list, Cllr Pritchard, Cllr Joan Lowe, Cllr Hugh Jones, Cllr Bithell and Cllr David Kelly have previously sat on the Executive Board as lead members during the previous administration.

There are four new names added to the board in the form of Cllr Paul Rogers, Cllr Terry Evans, Cllr Phil Wynn, Cllr Bill Baldwin.

Cllr David Griffiths will be returning the Executive Board, having previously served as a lead member during the Labour / Independent administration. Cllr Griffiths stepped down as lead member for Health and Adult Social Care in June 2014.

The Council’s website has been updated with the formal Executive Board list as per the top picture, but portfolios are at the time of writing still absent.