Mid Suffolk and Babergh District Councils may be about to change they make decisions – here’s why it matters
Your council might change how it makes decisions — here’s why it matters.
As it stands, every council in Suffolk at the county, district, and borough levels operates under the same leader cabinet system.
This means the full council elects a leader, usually also the leader of the largest party, who then appoints a sort of inner circle who have decision-making powers.
In Mid Suffolk and Babergh, however, the council’s decision-making system could be about to change as a review is now planned at some point over the next financial year.
In Babergh, councillors were able to discuss the issue yesterday evening after Cllr Michael Holt proposed a motion asking for a debate to be held in January next year and any potential change to be implemented by May.
This is not the first time the issue has come up in the council chamber, with a potential debate continually deferred since 2021 by the councillors of the day.
The motion, as proposed by Cllr Holt, was rejected by the council’s current leader, Deborah Saw, who chose to amend it in order for a debate to take place at some point during the 2025/26 financial year — meaning between May 2025 and March 2026 — and any potential changes to be implemented during the next available annual council meeting, in May 2026.
This, she stated, was because although the council was ‘very willing’ to discuss the issue, officers had to focus on delivering a ‘tricky’ budget and any approach would need to be partnered with their Mid Suffolk counterparts due the resources they shared, including officers.
She added: “It is not feasible to change the structure currently, officers are completely focused on delivering the budget — our priority is to deliver a balanced budget, nothing else matters more.
“It would be putting an intolerable burden on officers to run a cabinet a cabinet system for one council and a committee system for another.”
This spawned some protests from councillors outside of the current administration, who said the council should be able to make a decision on its own accord and felt the issue would just continue to be ‘kicked into the long grass’.
Cllr Holt said: “I don’t give two hoops what [Mid Suffolk District Council] think about us going back to a committee system, it’s our choice, we are a sovereign council.”
Cllr Peter Beer added: “It hasn’t come back, you keep pushing it away, you have no intention of bringing it back in time, really, you should be honest. It stinks — you’re trying to stop this debate happening.”
Changing to a committee system would mean the councils would be divided into politically balanced committees, each having decision-making powers.
By default, the cabinet system puts power into fewer hands, making decisions faster and more efficient but leaving other councillors, often those in opposition, feeling they can’t have their say.
This was raised by Cllr David Busby, who suggested the timing of the motion was only brought forward because the Conservatives were out of power.