Management Structure
South Hams District Council has recently reviewed and realigned its management structure to enhance efficiencies. The management team manage the day to day business of Council officers as they go about their work delivering against our priorities.

Full details of the current council structure are available on this link Management Team Structure.

The Council has 40 elected Councillors, also known as Members. Each Member is democratically elected to represent their Wards for a term of 4 years. The last elections were held on 1 May 2003.

Working with the District Council are 5 Town Councils (Dartmouth, Ivybridge, Kingsbridge, Salcombe and Totnes) and 54 Parish Councils and 2 Parish Meetings (Harford and Woodleigh – in these Parishes there are no Parish Councillors, but there is an annual Parish meeting for Parishioners to raise issues.)

How are decisions made?

All Members meet together as the Council. Here Members decide the Council’s overall policies, particularly Statutory Plans and set the budget and Council Tax each year. The Council may question the performance and decisions of the Executive and of other bodies of the Council. Meetings may include formal decision making, wider debates and presentations. The Council may also meet informally in workshops and seminars.

The Executive is the part of the Council which is responsible for most day-to-day decisions. It is made up of the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader of the Council and 6 further Members, all of whom are appointed by the Council. The Executive has to make decisions which are in line with the Council’s overall policies and budget. If it wishes to make a decision which is outside the budget or policy framework, this must be referred to the Council as a whole to decide.

There is a Scrutiny Group and three Policy Development Groups which support the work of the Executive and the Council as a whole. Reports and recommendations are put to the Executive and the Council to advise on policy, budget and service delivery. Scrutiny also monitors the decisions of the Executive and have the ability to ‘call-in’ decisions made by the Executive but not yet implemented. This enables the group to consider whether the decision is appropriate and if needs be recommend that the Executive reconsider the decision. Scrutiny may also be consulted by the Executive or the Council on forthcoming decisions and the development of policy.