Issue - meetings

To consider the Committee’s approach to the review of the Council’s Constitution.

The Committee considered a progress report on its review of the Council’s Constitution.

So far this year the Committee had made recommendations to Council in respect of a number of issues including:

§         Scheme of Delegation

§         Urgency Provisions

§         Questions at Council meetings

§         Contract Procedure rules

A number of other matters remained to be reviewed this year:

§         Finance Procedure Rules

§         Scrutiny Procedure Rules

§         Budget and Policy Framework

§         Staff Employment Procedure Rules

It was suggested that the Committee might wish to review its work programme with the aim of allowing Members more time to give full and proper consideration to proposals coming forward before making formal recommendations to Council. This was particularly appropriate with regard to large and complex areas of work such as the Finance and Contract Procedure Rules. It was further suggested that the Committee might wish to appoint a Member task group to consider such matters in detail before they were submitted to the Committee. Such an approach had worked well recently with the Planning Protocol Sub-Committee.

In considering this matter, Members were advised that under the Localism Act, councils had the option of reviewing their governance arrangements with a view to adopting a committee system in place of a leader and cabinet model. It was noted that the Corporate Scrutiny Committee was to consider the matter at its meeting in January 2012. In the circumstances, it was felt that, with the exception of the Finance Procedure Rules, any further review of the Constitution should be suspended pending the outcome of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee’s review of the Council’s governance arrangements.

RESOLVED

That

(1)   a task group of five members be appointed (3 Con; 1 Lab; 1 Ind) to consider and make recommendations on detailed changes to the Constitution, and in the first instance to consider proposed amendments to the Finance Procedure Rules; and

(2)   the remainder of the review of the Constitution be suspended until the Corporate Scrutiny Committee has concluded its review of the Council’s governance arrangements.