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It’s Our City successfully campaigned for a referendum on how the council should make decisions and, during the local elections last year, voters chose to change from the leader and cabinet model to a modern committee system – with the aim of giving more councillors a stronger say in decision-making.

A cross-party committee spent the past financial year drawing up the new system that will begin in May and last for at least a decade.

Sheffield referendum results prove people power is alive and well

Where it all started: Sheffield community group It's Our City (pictured Fran Grace, Sue Kondakor, Andrew Kondakor, Ruth Hubbard and Shelley Cockayne) are joined by Lord Mayor Magid Magid at the launch their petition to force a referendum on how decisions are made by the council. Picture Scott Merrylees

Ahead of approving the new system in a special full council meeting this week, councillor Julie Grocutt, deputy leader and executive member for community engagement and governance, said the authority will continue to fine-tune the new system and there will be a review after six months.

She said: “We want to ensure that Sheffielders understand and can engage in local democracy.

“It’s important that we listen to the people of Sheffield, that we focus on getting this committee system right, a system that listens to and works with our citizens. As part of the review we will listen to our communities, partners, stakeholders, staff and councillors.”

During the meeting, coun Cate McDonald, executive member for finance, moved an amendment to warn elected members about keeping within budgets and taking timely action to address overspending.

Sheffield Town Hall council chamber where decisions are made.

She said: “My amendment is a very short one but it makes a very important point.

“As everyone knows, we have an extremely challenging financial position at the moment and while I’m sure we all take ownership of this, this amendment makes this crystal clear.

“Each of the policy committees must take responsibility for the budgets they will be allocated and ensure that services deliver within the budget…

“This is obviously really crucial to ensure that we can deliver on the difficult budget we agreed earlier this month.”

Sheffield Council's new committee system structure.

Coun Sioned Mair-Richard, who seconded the amendment, urged all councillors to take the “shed loads” of training that will be on offer.

She added: “This amendment goes to the heart of what this new way of working is about: that everybody on the committee has responsibility for making sure that we keep within our budget.

“It’s not just the chair of the vice-chair, it is a committee responsibility and it is something that has to be taken very seriously.”

Overview of how it will work

Coun Grocutt pointed out that there were 94 recommendations in the report for the committee system covering public participation, full council meetings, leadership and other key areas.

Under the new way of working, there will be eight new policy committees aligned with service areas and strategic aims, and proportionate to the political make-up of the council, which will make decisions rather than individual councillors.

These are:

strategy and resources policy committee adult health and social care policy committee communities, parks and leisure policy committee economic development and skills policy committee education, children and families policy committee housing policy committee transport, regeneration and climate policy committee waste and street scene policy committee

The council’s full report on how it will work can be read here: https://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/documents/s50859/Governance%20Committee%20Report%202022-03-09%20as%20amended.pdf

Sheffield Council makes history as it agrees new way of working