The Committee received a report (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) setting out amendments to the Council’s Constitution to update the Council Procedure Rules and to establish a mechanism for any Councillor to act as a substitute on a Council body.
The Elections & Democratic Services Manager set out the report which summarised the work the Constitution Review Working Group had considered to date. Attention was drawn to Appendix 2 to the report where some minor tidying of paragraphs needed to take place, which would be addressed for the final report that would go to the Council meeting on 17th December.
In response to a question from the Committee around why there was a disparity between the 8 working days’ notice required for a written question to a member of the Cabinet, whereas there was only 5 working days’ notice if a member of the public wanted to ask a question, the Elections & Democratic Services Manager advised that it was not a disparity and there was no reasoning for this. It was a legacy and there were other references in the Council Procedure Rules to 8 working days. Equally this was not raised by the Constitution Review Working Group.
In response to further questions from the Committee, the Elections & Democratic Services Manager clarified that if someone wished to submit a written question, they would need to reference that it was a written question as per the Constitution to ensure it would be picked up appropriately. The proposal was to formalise this process and subject to the proposal being approved, officers would write to Members to clarify the position in terms of the changes. In terms of paragraph 9.3, the intention was to include a standing item on the Council agenda where there were questions to the Chair’s of Committees/Panels, as opposed to questions to the Chair of the Council, and the wording of that paragraph would be reviewed to clarify that intention. It was set out in statute under the 1972 Local Government Act when Annual Council meetings were to be held, to allow Councils flexibility. Furthermore, up until recently Annual Council had been held at 6.00pm, though exceptionally this year’s meeting took place at 7.00pm.
The Elections & Democratic Services Manager further advised that paragraph 9.9 could be amended so that it was consistent with regards to having the option to ask a supplementary question to a written and oral question. Regarding some questions of clarification around the election of a Chair at an Annual Meeting, she would take that away for clarification, however there did not appear to be an issue. Furthermore, the recommendations in the report would go to the Full Council meeting on 17th December and the changes proposed would be effective from the date on which the Council made that decision. It was noted that the previous Constitution required that questions had to be relevant to matters for which the Council had powers or duties, which was no longer referenced in paragraph 11.1. This also would be reviewed for consistency with written and oral questions.
The Committee noted the amendments that had been suggested during the meeting and were content for the report to be updated to reflect those changes.
Whereupon, it was
RESOLVED
that the Committee
(a)
endorsed the revised Council Procedure Rules as set out in Appendix
1 to the report now submitted;
(b)
recommended to Council the approval of the replacement of the
Council Procedure Rules in the Council’s
Constitution;
(c)
endorsed the new Substitutes Policy as set out in Appendix 3 to the
report now submitted; and
(d) recommended to Council the approval of the Substitutes Policy for insertion into the Council’s Constitution.