Issue - meetings

To consider recommendations to Council in respect of substitute Members at Planning meetings.

           On 17 June, the Strategic Planning Board considered a report, which proposed alternative arrangements to restrict the appointment of substitute members for planning matters. The Board made the following recommendation to the Governance and Constitution Committee and to Council:

“That the scheme of substitution in the Constitution be amended as follows:

a)         No substitution shall be made to the North Area Planning Committee except with a Member from the South Area Planning Committee and vice versa. The substitute Member should wherever possible come from the same political group but may come from a different political group

b)         No substitutions shall be made to the Strategic Planning Board from the area committees or at all.”

On 25 June 2009, the Governance and Constitution Committee considered the recommendations of the Strategic Planning Board and, whilst it supported recommendation (a) and recommended it to Council, the Committee did not support recommendation (b).

The Governance and Constitution Committee, therefore, recommended to Council only that:

a)     “No substitution shall be made to the North Area Planning Committee except with a Member from the South Area Planning Committee and vice versa. The substitute Member should wherever possible come from the same political group but may come from a different political group.”

Council was requested to decide whether it wished the Constitution to be changed to reflect both recommendations (a) and (b), according to the wishes of the Strategic Planning Board, or just recommendation (a), in line with the wishes of the Governance and Constitution Committee.

The Prosperity Portfolio Holder proposed that, in light of recent discussions  the recommendations set out in the report be deferred for further consideration by the appropriate Committees.

RESOLVED

That the recommendations set out on page 51 of the agenda be deferred for further consideration by the appropriate Committees.