The way that the 'political machine' of the County Council works is similar to how Parliament works.

All elected councillors sit in Full Council. The elected councillors are known as Members of the County Council. Full Council is a major meeting, held every 6 weeks. Full Council is the highest level of decision making in the Council.

County Councillors are usually members of a political party (but they can be independent). The party with the most Councillors becomes the ruling party.

Senior Councillors from the ruling party form the Cabinet. Cabinet develops new policies and variations to existing policy.

The law says that some council functions cannot be dealt with by Cabinet, they have to be considered by specialist committees. These are also called 'regulatory, corporate and ethical functions'.

The council's decisions, policies, and services are scrutinised by four overview and scrutiny committees. These are the Overview Committee, Communities and the Environment Standing Committee, Health and Wellbeing Standing Committee and Education Standing Committee. This is known as ' scrutiny'.

Council, Cabinet and most committee meetings are usually open to the public, to see dates, agendas, reports and minutes please see the Council Diary.

The Council has a Constitution, which sets out the legal rules it must follow. The Constitution sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which must be followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people.