5.1 As set out above, a Joint Committee or Joint Officer Board is not a legal entity separate from the participating authorities, and so it relies on a "Lead Authority" to employ staff and to implement its decisions. An extreme form of a Lead Authority is where one or more authorities simply agree that one authority will discharge a function on behalf of the other authorities. Such an "Agency Arrangement", where the agent authority agrees to discharge the function on behalf of the client authorities, can be coupled with consultative arrangements, so that each authority is involved in the management of the combined service.
5.2 Such agency arrangements can be set up relatively simply and are flexible as they can be varied by agreement between the participating authorities. For an authority which operates executive governance, the decisions to set up, or vary such agency arrangements would rest with the executive if the arrangements related to executive functions. Otherwise the decision would rest with the Council, or might be delegated to a Committee or Sub-Committee of the Council. Because the agent authority would be incurring significant cost in providing the services on behalf of the client authorities, and because the client authorities wish to ensure that the services are properly provided, such agency arrangements would normally be underpinned by a legally-binding agency arrangement providing for the costs of the service to be shared by the participating authorities.