In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a total period of 15 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the Council on any matter relevant to the work of the Council.
Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers.
Note: In order for officers to undertake any background research it would be helpful if questions were submitted at least one working day before the meeting.
Minutes:
It was reported that, in accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35, Mr Byron Evans of Crewe had given prior notice of his wish to ask questions at this meeting in relation to the following matters and spoke to them at the meeting: -
§ Members Allowances – to ask the Council to consider amending the Constitution so that it had to abide by the decision of the Independent Remuneration Panel;
§ Constitution: sharing of information between Councillors – does this conflict with the Code of Conduct on disclosure of information?
§ Lack of information to the General Public regarding the timetable of meetings and availability of agenda to the Public
The Leader of Council responded to the matters raised as follows:
As many Members will be aware, the Cheshire (Structural Changes) Order applied Cheshire County Council’s Scheme of Member Allowances to the Shadow Council in the first instance. The Local Authorities (Member Allowances) Regulations also apply to the Shadow Council. These Regulations provide for an Independent Remuneration to be established in order to make recommendations upon the Shadow Council’s allowances schemes.
The Regulations say that the Shadow Council must “have regard” to the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel before it makes or amends its Scheme of Allowances, but that is all. There is no requirement upon the Shadow Council to adopt all of the Panel’s recommendations without amendment. In this case, the Independent Remuneration Panel acknowledged that the Shadow Council would want to exercise some discretion over certain allowances, hence the recommendations before the Council today.
With regard to the question about the sharing of confidential information between Shadow Councillors, I think that Councillor Evans has perhaps misunderstood Article 2 of the Shadow Council’s Constitution.
This provision was taken from the Model Constitution prepared by the Government Department and says that Shadow Councillors shall not divulge confidential information to anyone other than Shadow Councillors or others who are “legally entitled to know it”.
The only circumstances in which a Shadow Councillor could divulge confidential information to a colleague Shadow Councillor would be where that colleague was “legally entitled to know” ie he/she was a member of the relevant committee, or for some other legally justified reason.
Turning to the question about availability of information to members of the public about Shadow Council meetings and hard copy documents, I believe that whilst there is always opportunity to improve, we are doing a good job in both areas.
The Shadow Council has a website which makes available to all Members of the public full information about when Shadow Council meetings will take place. Copies of agendas and reports are also available to those individuals at the touch of a button.
For those without access to the internet, hard copies of all agendas and public reports are made available at the various Council offices around the Shadow Council’s area. If individuals wish to take away a set of papers, they are permitted to do so, and this is written into the Constitution at page 59.
Relevant details of forthcoming meetings are also publicised in hard copy form, with copies being provided to public libraries and information points.
It is right to say that we presume many people will want to view copies of agendas and reports on-line. Many people find this the most convenient way of looking at documents as it removes the need for them to attend the Council offices in order to do so. It is also an indicator of the Shadow Council’s approach to conserving natural resources and avoiding the waste of paper.