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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Mayoralty Room, Town Hall

Contact: Julia Stuckey 

Link: audio recording

Items
No. Item

71.

APOLOGIES AND SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

To receive any apologies for absence and notices of appointment of Substitute Members (if any).

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillor Mrs L J Holloway.

72.

PUBLIC QUESTION TIME

To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public and replies thereto.

 

Note:   A maximum of 30 minutes is allowed for this item.

Minutes:

There were no members of the public in attendance.

73.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 134 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting of this Committee (attached).

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the last meeting were agreed as a true record.

74.

CHAIRMAN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS

To receive any announcements the Chairman of the Committee may wish to make.

Minutes:

The Chairman had no announcements to make.

75.

COMPLAINTS

To receive an update from the Monitoring Officer with regard to any on-going complaints being dealt with.  During the discussion it may be necessary to consider passing the following resolution to protect the Members of District, Town and Parish Council’s being discussed.

 

During discussion of this item it may be necessary to pass the following resolution to exclude the press and public having reflected on Article 12 12.02(d) (a presumption in favour of openness) of the Constitution. This decision may be required because consideration of this matter in public may disclose information falling within one of the descriptions of exempt information in Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972. The Committee will need to decide whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption, outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

 

ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT – EXCLUSION OF THE PRESS AND PUBLIC

 

RECOMMENDED that under section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the next item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, namely information relating to an individual

 

Minutes:

There had been no complaints to report.

76.

UPDATES FROM THE CONSTITUTION WORKING GROUP pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To receive the draft updated Constitution from the Constitution Working Group.

Minutes:

The Committee had before it the draft Constitution from the Constitution Working Group for review. 

 

The Chairman asked the Solicitor to explain the legal situation with regard to the Constitution and for his opinion on when the document would be ready to go to Full Council. 

 

The Solicitor explained that he had worked through the Rules of Procedure and had some areas of concern to raise with the Committee.  He had not yet had time to thoroughly check the remainder of the document and did not consider that it would be ready to go to Full Council on 29th April 2015.

 

Considering the draft Constitution he referred to the removal of the Leader on page 101, which gave reference to a motion requiring a specific number of Councillor’s support.  The Solicitor considered that legislation allowed for a majority vote to remove the Leader. The Solicitor expressed concern that the model code used to build the draft Constitution may have predated some legislation from the Localism Act 2011.

 

On page 118 information regarding the Standards Committee was out of date and needed to be removed.

 

Discussion took place regarding the thoroughness and the volume of work that had been carried out by the Working Group. Members of the Group expressed disappointment that the work would not be completed within this Council but agreed that it needed to be thoroughly checked by the Legal Service.

 

The Chairman suggested that in future a timescale for projects such as this be put in place at the onset of the work.

 

It was AGREED that the draft Constitution required further work from both a legal and financial aspect.  Therefore the draft Constitution would not be put before Council on 29th April 2015.

 

The Committee AGREED to work through the Rules of Procedure.

 

A number of points of correction and clarification were raised:

 

On page 90, 1.1 (g) the sentence read that the Council appoints the Chairman of Scrutiny.  The Solicitor to check whether this wording could legally be changed to ‘elect’.

 

On page 95, 10.1.(d) the sentence end at ‘Council shall proceed to the next business’.

 

On page 96, 11.2 (f) the wording ‘giving reasons’, be added to the first sentence.

 

Discussion took place regarding the number of signatures needed on a petition for it to be scheduled for a Council debate.  It was agreed that the figure of 1500 was appropriate.

 

On page 98, 13 the numbering be corrected.

 

Discussion took place regarding Public Question Time and whether or not the public should be allowed to make statements. The Committee agreed that this part of the meeting should be for questions only.

 

Throughout the document all reference to the Mayor needed to be changed to read Chairman.

 

Under Motions of Notice on page 100, 14.1 wording be added that the reason for rejection of the motion be given and that the record of Motions be available on the Councils website.

 

Page 101, 14.7 the Solicitor informed the Committee that the Leader could  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76.

77.

IDENTIFICATION OF ITEMS FOR THE NEXT MEETING

To consider any items for the next meeting of the Committee.

Minutes:

6.00pm on the 28th April 2015 in the Members Room

 

To continue working through the Rules of Procedure.