To deal with any questions raised pursuant to Procedure Rule 13 not already dealt with during the relevant Committee reports.
Minutes:
The following written questions were submitted by Cllr Woollatt and answered by the Leader of the Council:
Question 1.
On February 22 2023 in response to Motion 591 this Council resolved to change from the Cabinet system of governance to a modernised Committee system to be implemented from the Annual Meeting of 2024.
The necessary changes to the Constitution will need to be agreed prior to that by the Standards Committee and recommended by them to Full Council. There are now only two Standards meetings scheduled that this could take place at (18 October and 7 February 2024).
What actions have so
far been undertaken by officers on the work and preparations that
they need to make to implement Motion 591?
Answer
On the 22 February at Full Council the District Solicitor and Monitoring Officer stated that if members indicate to go to a Committee System we would take this Motion as a steer to go away and start preparing the governance framework for this type of system and that it would need to be brought back to Full Council for a final decision at some point in the future.
On 14 August the District Solicitor and Monitoring Officer stated in Scrutiny Committee that she would be bringing a briefing note/update report to Full Council to the next Full Council (1 November 2023) and suggested that this come to Scrutiny in December 2023. Scrutiny Committee agreed that this would be added to their Work Plan in December 2023.
Question 2.
Which of the two
scheduled Standards Committee meetings is it planned to present the
necessary Constitutional changes for the committee to consider and
agree their recommendation to Council? Or if it is intended to
schedule an additional meeting for this purpose which date is that
to be scheduled in for?
Answer
Therefore the Motion can go before the 7 February 2024 Standards Committee.
Question 3.
The recent advert for a new member services manager included the following statement: “Our Executive structure includes policy development groups as well as a traditional scrutiny committee and a variety of working groups. One key element of the role will be to work with senior Councillors and Leadership Team to further develop the effectiveness of these bodies in identifying future policy as well as delivering on our existing corporate priorities.”
Why did the job advert make reference to ‘developing the effectiveness’ of PDGs and not make any reference to the impending change of governance which Council had resolved to be implemented from the 2024 Annual Meeting?
Answer
The Job Description is based on the current structure at MDDC. At this time the Council still operates under a cabinet system and therefore it was appropriate to advertise the role based on existing practices.
A supplemental statement was raised which highlighted that the Council should be working towards a change in Governance and that this was not included in the job advert, this raised concern as it was felt that it appeared that the Council was not moving to a committee system.