Agenda item

Committee considered a report in relation to areas for review within the Council’s constitution.

The following areas had been identified for review at this meeting.

a) Scope of Council Questions by Members

There was currently a disparity between the scope for questions from members of the public and Councillors.  The scope applied to public questions did not currently apply to questions on notice by Councillors.  It was proposed to change Procedure Rule 9 to include the same scope as for questions from members of the public (as set out below), which would bring both Procedure Rules 8 and 9 into line with each other.

The Monitoring Officer may reject a question if:

(a) it is not about a matter for which the Council has a responsibility or which affects the district;

(b) it is defamatory, frivolous or offensive;

(c) it is substantially the same as a question which has been put at a meeting of the Council in the past six months;

(d) it requires the disclosure of confidential or exempt information;

(e) it breaches any procedure rule;

(f) it relates to an item on the agenda for that Council meeting; or

(g) it relates to a planning application that is in the process of being determined by the District Council.

If a question is rejected the person who submitted it will be notified in writing before the meeting and given the reasons for the rejection.

b) Withdrawal of Questions by Members

There was currently no provision within the constitution for a Councillor to withdraw a question which had been submitted, accepted and published. Section 9 of the Council Procedure Rules was silent on this scenario.  It was proposed to clarify the situation by adding the following a paragraph to set out that questions could be withdrawn in writing not later than 24 hours in advance of the meeting.

The Committee discussed the proposal and agreed that the deadline should be 9am on the day of the meeting.  Therefore the following would be added to the constitution:

9.10: Withdrawal of Questions

A question which has been accepted and published may be withdrawn by the Member who asked it provided that they indicate this in writing to the Monitoring Officer and the Member to which the question has been asked not later than 9am on the day of the meeting.

c) Delegation Scheme Amendment

There were some statutory matters which were missing from the Proper Officer provisions within the Scheme of Delegation. Provisions required for the notification and control powers from transmissible diseases which were given to Proper Officers within:

Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984

S11, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 29, 31, 36, 40, 42, 43 and 48

Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations 1988

Regulations 6,8,9,10

Sch 3 and 4

It was proposed to add these missing elements to the Proper Officer provisions.

d) Housing Allocations Review Panel (HARP)

The Housing Allocations Review Panel (HARP) membership needed to be updated as the Housing Needs Manager post had been disestablished.  It was proposed to substitute the Housing Needs Manager post with the Community Safety and Enforcement Manager post.

Also, it was proposed to change a part of the terms of reference from ‘The Housing Needs Manager or the Housing Enforcement Manger must be in attendance’ to ‘The Housing Enforcement Manager or the Community Safety and Enforcement Manager must be in attendance with at least one other panel member.’  This change would ensure clarity on who needed to be present and that the panel should comprise of at least two officers.

e) Deadlines

Clarity was required when no time had been specified in respect of a deadline within the constitution.

This would require the following sentence to be added to the Council Procedure Rules - 

‘Unless otherwise stated, or where ‘working day’ is used as a description, a deadline within this constitution is deemed to be 5.00pm’.

Moved by Councillor David Downes and seconded by Councillor Deborah Watson

RESOLVED – that the Committee support the submission of all the proposals to Council as part of the next Constitution Review.

(Monitoring Officer)