Decision details

To consider the recommendations from the independent review of the governance arrangements for Gloucestershire Airport undertaken by York Aviation on behalf of Cheltenham Borough Council & Gloucester City Council, as joint shareholders.

The Leader introduced the report and explained that York Aviation Limited (YAL) had been jointly commissioned by CBC and Gloucester City Council, as joint shareholders, to undertake an independent review of Gloucestershire Airport Limited governance arrangements. This was a follow up from the recommendations contained within their previous report commissioned in 2013. He reported that as part of their review, YAL had consulted with the Shareholders, the Joint Airport Scrutiny Working Group and the Airport Board, to discuss the current state of the governance arrangements and capture their concerns and were supportive of the recommendations.

The Leader explained that the report included the following :

·        recommending a 10 year strategy for the airport, including a 5 year rolling business plan

·        replacing the Joint Airport Working group with a Shareholder forum with joint representation from members and officers, to guide and approve the Strategy and Business Plan for the Airport

·        retaining an 8 person Airport Board consisting of 2 Executive Directors, 2 independent  specialist non-executive Directors with financial management and aviation/airport management skills, 2 non executive Directors from Gloucester City Council and 2 non-executive Directors from CBC

The Leader said that it was uncertain at this stage whether it was necessary to offer an allowance to non-executive Directors to attract the necessary skills. More work was necessary to implement the recommendations and understand the order in which they should be taken. The Leader explained that a further piece of work would be commissioned on revising the Memorandum and Articles. It was important that this work was progressed with Gloucester City to ensure that the Airport was a success and that it produced dividends to both shareholders.

RESOLVED THAT

The recommendations as laid down in the report be approved