Issue - meetings

To consider a report from the Democratic Services Manager.

Councillor D Topping declared a personal interest in this matter on the grounds that he was a member of the Governance and Constitution Committee.

The Committee considered a report of the Democratic Services Manager  detailing the terms of a consultation by the Governance and Constitution Committee in relation to the public and member speaking and question provisions that were currently contained within the Council’s approved Constitution.

On 16 April 2009, the Governance and Constitution Committee had considered a report in response to requests received from the Shadow Authority’s Scrutiny Committee to remove the public speaking/open session from the rules of procedure for the Scrutiny Committee. The Licensing committee had similarly requested that provision for members of the public to ask questions/speak at the commencement of meetings to the Licensing committee be waived.

Governance and Constitution Committee had on 21 May 2009 considered a further report relating to Member speaking rights at the Planning Board and Planning committee meetings and it had been agreed to recommend to Council that the Constitution be changed to reflect the provisions of the Planning protocol which gave Members speaking rights at those meetings, subject to certain requirements.

The Committee considered the need to separate arrangements for public/member involvement between decision making and non decision making committees. The view of the Committee was that it was not appropriate for questions to be asked by the public at meetings of non decision making committees but that it would be appropriate, subject to certain restrictions, at decision making committees. However, the committee did support allowing the public to make statements at meetings of Overview and Scrutiny committees.

RESOLVED –

That Governance and Constitution Committee be informed that the views of this Committee in relation to Public and member questions are as follows:

1. That the existing Planning and Licensing Protocols which override the member and public speaking and questioning provisions that apply to other committees, should be retained;

2. That the facility to allow questions by Members of the Public at meetings of Overview and Scrutiny Committees should be removed, but a period of 15 minutes be provided at the beginning of meetings to allow members of the Public to make a Statement(s) on any matter that falls within the remit of the relevant committee, subject to individual speakers being restricted to 5 minutes each;

3. That whilst acknowledging that Planning and Licensing Committees have separate arrangements in place for public involvement, in all other cases, members of the Public should provide 3 clear working days notice, in writing, if they wish to ask a question at any other decision making meeting, in order for an informed answer to be given, but they should not be required to give notice of intention to make use of public speaking provision (although as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours notice should be encouraged);

4. That members of the Council should, in accordance with the current rules, be required to provide 3 clear working days notice in writing if they wish to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11