Committee details

Efforts are made to ensure that as much as possible of the Cabinet's business is done in public meetings.  Occasionally, Cabinet will meet in private when it might consider items that include information that, if discussed in public, might prejudice the public interest.  Examples might be:

The value of land that the Council wishes to sell, which might affect the price negotiated if discussed in public the details of proposed contracts for goods, services or works that might reveal commercially confidential information or might affect the price the Council has to pay information about an individual

Details of the type information that might be discussed in private are set out in the Council's access to information rules within the Council’s Constitution.  Where an item is discussed in private, any report discussed may be released after the meeting on request, with any private information deleted.

The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 requires the Council to give at least 28 days notice of any private meetings of the Cabinet or its sub-committees.  This is to allow any interested party to make representations that the meeting should be held in public.  A further notice then has to be given 5 clear days before the private meeting, setting out the Council's response to any representations.

The Notice of private meetings can be found on the Cabinet agenda we page within each meeting date as a pre-agenda notice.

The Cabinet is a group of nine elected members responsible for the overall business of the Council.

The Cabinet comprises the Leader of the Council who is the Chairperson, and eight other members appointed by the Leader.

Each Cabinet member has a defined portfolio of responsibilities linked to the Council’s range of services.

All Cabinet Members have a shared and individual responsibility for developing and implementing the Council’s policy, performance and budget framework.

The Forward Plan is published every month and lists key decisions to be made by the Cabinet within the following four months to allow at least 28 clear days’ notice. The Forward Plan is available to view on the website. Where a decision needs to be taken more urgently so that giving 28 days’ notice is impractical, a General Exception Notice or Special Urgency Noticewill be published and these will be available to view on the website also.

For further details of the Cabinet, please follow this link: https://www.oldham.gov.uk/cabinet

Leader of the Council

The Leader chairs the Council’s Cabinet meeting and is accountable for proposing and directing the overall strategy, budget and policy arrangements of the Council.

The Leader of the Council is Councillor Arooj Shah who is elected by all members of the Council at the annual Council meeting.

It is the responsibility of the Leader to ‘lead the Council’, build a vision for the district and represent Oldham at regional and national events.

The Leader also provides community leadership to those organisations that work closely with the Council.

Leader of the Opposition

The Leader of the Opposition is Councillor Graham Sheldon who shadow and scrutinise the Leader of the Council and Cabinet in the undertaking of their duties.

The Leader of the Opposition act as the principal spokesperson for the Opposition Group of which they are leaders and establishes and represents the views of the group on issues of policy and priority.