The Board should have clear terms of reference, including in particular precise areas of delegated authority, which is consistent with established decision-taking structures of the Authority and explicitly identifies those decisions requiring referral to the Authority's cabinet or full council when appropriate recommendations would be made. The key items of the Board's responsibilities are listed at Annex 1.
In cases of multiple WDA procurements,4 within the terms of reference of the Board there will crucially need to be included precise voting arrangements and an agreed dispute resolution procedure, which is likely in exceptional cases to require referral for decision to an inter-authority chief executives'/leaders' group for resolution. Also, to support the Board there may also be a requirement to establish sub-groups, comprising selected members of the Board and supported by the Project Team reflecting specific activities cutting across the Authority, such as legal, financial and PR. Meetings of these sub-groups should be used to review progress, to resolve any concerns, and to ensure as far as possible that all recommendations to the Board are fully supported at officer level across all the authorities, albeit there may be instances when that is not possible. Importantly too, the Board should to be chaired throughout the project term by a single SRO who will be responsible for the entire project, albeit all the nominated senior owners from each organisation will be involved in the project. Similarly, there will need to be a single Project Director (PD), acceptable to all the authorities.
The Board should arrange to meet at key milestones during the project and otherwise generally on a monthly basis. There should be a timed agenda and the meetings should usually last no more than 2 hours, although this could extend up to 4 hours when major decisions are required. All meetings must be appropriately administered, with well prepared Board papers circulated in advance and clear and accurate minutes. In this latter respect, the legal framework especially in respect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and experience of the Competitive Dialogue regime in other PFI sectors make it essential that a documented decision trail of the highest quality is maintained.
The Board agenda should include as a standing item, a review and update of the Project Risk Register thereby ensuring active management of key project risks.
In certain instances, the Authority may wish to give the Board responsibility for other projects related to the RWTP. These might typically include contracts for composting and landfill services and for smaller-scale and less complex infrastructure projects pursuant to the Authority's waste strategy, such as the provision of waste transfer stations and materials recovery facilities. In such cases the Board may also have delegated authority for managing progress against landfill diversion targets and associated cost/income attainments and projections.
Where there are a number of related procurements (e.g. a residual waste facilities and front-end recycling contract) then the interface risks between the different interdependent procurements will present a substantial challenge and it will be especially important that they are very carefully managed by the Board.
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4 This guidance does not address the arrangements implicit in statutory Joint Waste Authorities (JWAs) which will be the subject matter of separate WIDP guidance.