Crawley’s 36 councillors,
meeting together as the Full Council, are responsible for making
decisions on the most important issues like deciding the overall
policies and setting the borough council element of the Council
Tax.
The Council has a Cabinet which works in a similar way to the Government’s Cabinet. The Cabinet is responsible for most of the day-to-day decisions affecting Council services. It is made up of eight councillors (one of whom is the Leader of the Council) who each hold a special portfolio of responsibility.
Decisions in more specialised areas are taken at committees like the Audit Committee, Planning Committee, and Licensing Committee.
There is also an Overview and Scrutiny Commission which looks into matters of local concern and makes recommendations to the Cabinet and Full Council on the budget, policy and service delivery. The Commission does not have decision making powers itself.
View the Council’s Committee Structure.
Crawley Borough Council has a constitution which outlines how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures to be followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people.
The Full Council is made up of all 36 councillors.
It meets every nine weeks to discuss the decisions and recommendations of other Council committees.
The Full Council is responsible for taking all the major decisions of the Council such as setting the Council Tax rate or items involving major expenditure.
The meetings are chaired by the Mayor of the Council who has the casting vote in debates.
The public can ask questions at Full Council meetings. You can find details of how to ask questions at Full Council by following the ‘Supporting Information’ link and then clicking ‘Speaking at Committees’.