4.20 This depends upon the extent to which the constituent authorities are prepared to collaborate. It may be that each constituent authority wishes to reserve certain critical decisions for its own decision, but is prepared to delegate all the powers necessary for the Joint Committee to progress the project, subject to approval of those reserved decisions.
4.21 To illustrate this in the area of waste, it is quite feasible for authorities to set up a Joint Committee to discharge both waste collection and waste disposal functions, and many related functions such as street cleansing, graffiti clearance and dealing with fly tipping. However, the view might equally be taken that the real advantages of joint working come where the authorities can achieve economies of scale by joint procurement and/or operation of a plant, and so it is in the area of residual waste treatment and disposal that the greater benefits are available. But each constituent authority might be cautious about handing over all responsibility for waste treatment and disposal to a Joint Committee, not least because they have to know that they can each afford whatever is proposed.
4.22 So it might be that each constituent authority would reserve for its own determination (i.e. exclude from any powers which are delegated to the Joint Committee) certain key decisions including for example the approval of the overall business case for the project, which would refer to any relevant policies in relation to disposal technology and would set out the anticipated cost of the plant and services being procured. This approach would enable each constituent authority to ensure that the Joint Committee does not invest in technologies that may be undeliverable and address matters relating to affordability of the project in a unanimous manner.
4.23 In practice, the types of functions likely to be delegated to a waste Joint Committee are all executive functions and this is advantageous for a number of reasons:
• The Joint Committee could only exercise those functions in accordance with the relevant waste management strategies and policies approved by the constituent authorities, and the budget as approved by the constituent authorities. If it tried to go outside these policies and budget, that would amount to a "departure decision"8 and could only be taken by the full Council of the constituent authorities, in exactly the same manner as for departure decisions arising within one of those authorities;
• The fact that these functions are only executive functions means that the Joint Committee is appointed by the Cabinets of each constituent authority from among the members of each Cabinet, and is not politically proportionate; and
• It means that the Joint Committee operates on the slightly more relaxed Executive Decision Procedure Rules, rather than the stricter Access to Information regime applicable for normal Committees and Sub-Committees.9
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8 Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/2853) Sch.4 Note that "Departure decision" is not a term used in the legislation but is used in practice as shorthand for decisions within Sch.4 which refers to the executive being minded "to determine the matter contrary to, or not wholly in accordance with (i) the authority's budget; or (ii) the plan or strategy for the time being approved or adopted by the authority in relation to their borrowing or capital expenditure."
9 Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/3272 as amended by SI2006/69).