The Local Authorities (Alternative Arrangements) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2009

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Part II of the Local Government Act 2000 provides for the Welsh Ministers to specify which local authorities may operate “alternative arrangements” (i.e. arrangements for the discharge of the authority’s functions which do not involve the creation and operation of an executive of the authority) (section 31(1)(b)) and what form those arrangements should take (section 32).

The Local Authorities (Alternative Arrangements) (Wales) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/397 (W.43)) (“the Principal Regulations”) permit all county councils and county borough councils in Wales to operate alternative arrangements provided that those arrangements are in the form required by those Regulations.

The Principal Regulations specify those functions that are not to be the responsibility of an authority’s board or are to be the responsibility of such a board only to a limited extent or only in specified circumstances.

These Regulations amend the Principal Regulations.

Schedule 2 to the Principal Regulations lists those functions which may be (but need not be) the responsibility of an authority’s board. Regulation 4 of these Regulations amends this list by inserting specified functions under the Highways Act 1980, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Gambling Act 2005. The effect of these amendments is that a local authority has discretion as to whether the functions in question are exercised by the board.

Regulation 5 amends the Principal Regulations by using generic wording to refer to the children and young people’s plans to be prepared and published by local authorities in accordance with regulations made under section 26 of the Children Act 2004. It also provides that rights of way improvement plans must not be the sole responsibility of the board.