| Description | Cambridgeshire County Council (1974-) was an entirely new local authority which replaced the County Council of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely (see CC5) and the County Council of Huntingdon and Peterborough (see CC6). The new authority was more than just a geographical amalgamation; it marked a new constitutional and management approach to county level government. Before 1974 chief officers, such as the County Architect, County Education Officer and so on, reported individually to Full Council. There was no management team nor any corporate policies. The County Clerk generally held things together behind the scenes, working by tradition and by force of personality, but the Clerk was professionally usually a solicitor rather than a strategic manager of resources.
All this changed in 1974. The office of Clerk of the County was abolished and a new role of full time Chief Executive was created, who soon established a management team of Directors to whom chief officers reported. The Chief Executive reported to a new committee called the Policy Committee. Elections of Members changed from being held once every three years to once every four years, to give more time for policy changes to embed. The Council was constitutionally politicised, in the sense that recognition was given to a formal opposition grouping or party which had some rights to representation on specific committees. Moreover, candidates were for the first time permitted to state their party political affiliation on ballot papers, which led to more seats being properly contested at elections.
The County Council was established as a shadow authority in the spring of 1973 and elections were held for Members in April of that year. This allowed for the smoothest possible handover on 1 April 1974. It is important to note that there was no transfer document or agreement between the outgoing councils and the new County Council, and nor was such a document necessary. On 1 April the new County Council inherited all the responsibilities, assets and liabilities of its predecessors simply by virtue of its very existence, in the same way that a new monarch inherits all the responsibilities, assets and liabilities of their predecessor monarch at the instant the predecessor monarch dies.
COMMITTEES
During the period 1974-2001 and from 2014 onwards the County Council's work has been carried out by committees. The programme committees exercise all the powers and duties of the County Council in their programme areas, so that only the budget, major plans reserved to Council, and really contentious issues need to be discussed by Full Council. Some committees oversee permanent sub-committees to which particular powers and duties have been formally delegated. Committees and sub-committees may also set up ad hoc sub-committees, panels or working groups to examine particular matters or issues, but these do not have permanently delegated powers, and in practice they usually only send reports or recommendations up to the parent committee or sub-committee.
The committee hierarchy has changed in detail very many times since 1974. Some services have moved from one committee to another committee many times. The majority of these changes have occurred when political control of the authority has changed, which means in practice that committees and sub-committees tend to be created or dissolved in the same years as elections. For ease of searching, the committees have been grouped together in this catalogue thematically, so that (for example) all property-related committees and sub-committees are catalogued under CC7/M4, irrespective of where they sat at any particular date.
Some committees changed name frequently. At times even Democratic Services were confused as to what the formal name of a committee might be, especially after the introduction of word processing software, when it became convenient to use older agenda papers as an electronic template to create new ones, which meant that (very occasionally) the names of old committees were carried across onto new agenda papers by accident. For some reason this seems to have been a particular problem with transport committees, with agenda papers sometimes carrying a different committee name from that written on the minutes of the same meeting.
During the period 2001-2014 the County Council operated using a Cabinet model, whereby decisions were made by individual portfolio holders or by Cabinet as a whole rather than by committees. Service Development Groups, comprising elected Members from all of the political groups, were established to advise the Cabinet on aspects of the Council's work. These groups were chaired by the relevant Cabinet member responsible for the service. The prime purpose of these groups was to act as a sounding board and source of advice to both the relevant Cabinet member and the service director. The Cabinet member was required to consult the relevant SDG at critical stages in formulating new policy. These groups were advisory only and usually met in private. Cabinet records and the records of the various SDGs which informed them are catalogued under CC7/M13/1.
Scrutiny Committees scrutinised the Cabinet’s decisions for particular service areas both before they were implemented (known as ‘call in’) and after they were implemented (known as ‘performance review’) but they could not themselves make decisions and their basis in law was different to that for pre-2001 and post-2014 committees. All Scrutiny Committee records have therefore been catalogued together, under CC7/M13. As an added complexity, because this is not already complicated enough, the Scrutiny Committees had been created in advance of the change in the County Council's constitution, so that the change itself would take place as smoothly as possible; the pre-2001 committees were called Scrutiny Panels. These Panels had no constitutional or legal basis prior to 2001 and worked alongside the normal committees in their service areas, so their records will be found in the main thematic areas of this catalogue, rather than in CC7/M13.
DEPARTMENTS
The County Council was originally established with twelve departments, each led by a Chief Officer. These departments were: Architecture; Consumer protection; Education; Fire and rescue; Land agent and valuer; Library; Planning; Police; Secretary; Social Services; Surveyor; and Treasurer. These departments were very soon grouped into directorates, and over time the Council's structure has evolved into a state of almost continual hierarchical flux, with individual teams moving from service area to service area and with departments being broken up and reordered. A good example is the archives service itself, which has at various times sat within libraries, education, heritage, adult social care, environment, community, and legal departments, depending on the results of the most recent restructure at the time. Very occasionally the County Council's departmental structure has paralleled its committee structure (for instance the creation of an Education Libraries and Heritage department in 1997 was matched with the creation of an ELH committee) but there has never been any requirement to do so, and organisational restructures have tended to swiftly outpace committee changes.
The strongest continuity element in all this flux is usually the team itself. So, the CC7/D numbers are thematic, and relate to the work of the team, rather than the hierarchical directorate structure sitting above the team. For example, any records created by the archives team will be found under CC7/D8, irrespective of precisely where the archive sat within the organisational structure at any given time.
Publications held by the Local Government Information Service (LGIS) library are catalogued in their own series, under CC7/LGIS.
ACCESS
This catalogue is a work-in-progress, and many series of records have not yet been catalogued. Please contact the Archives Service for more details. |