Agenda item

Report attached.

Members considered a report of Councillor Joyce Plummer, Portfolio Holder for Resources, proposing a number of further updates to the Council’s written constitution.

The Council was required by law to have a written constitution.  The Council’s written constitution was reviewed regularly and a copy of the constitution was available on the Council’s website.  A further review of the constitution had recently taken place to:

• ensure the constitution took account of the Council’s new political management arrangements; and
• determine whether the current restrictions on motions were still appropriate given the relaxation of Covid restrictions;

and, following consultation with the Leader’s Policy Development Board, a  number of amendments to the constitution were proposed for approval as follows:

Motions

It was proposed that the current limit on the number of motions (to one per group) was removed, but to facilitate the conclusion of meetings by 10.00pm, it was proposed that:

• Debate was limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per motion; and
• A maximum of 1.5 hours was allowed for motions at each Council meeting (with the suspension of standing orders being required as previously to permit a meeting to go on beyond 10.00pm); and
• Any motions not debated by the end of a Council meeting would require resubmission in order to be included on the agenda at the next Council meeting, rather than being automatically carried over to the next agenda.

Leaders Policy Development Board

Membership of this body currently comprised: Leader of Council, Deputy Leader of Council, 1 Cabinet member, Leader and Deputy of the main opposition group and Leaders of any minority political groups.  The current wording could cause an issue if the leader of the largest political group wasn’t Leader or Deputy Leader of the Council.

It was therefore proposed to close the potential loophole by revising potential membership to include:

• Leader of Council
• Deputy Leader of Council
• 1 Cabinet member,
• Leader and Deputy of the main opposition group
• Leaders of any other political groups.

Scheme of Delegation

When determining exceptions to our Flying The Flag policy the Chief Executive was currently required to consult with the Mayor and political group leaders, which would exclude the Leader of the Council.

It was proposed to change this to the Mayor, Leader of the Council and group leaders.

Council Procedure Rules

Currently urgent Committee / Sub-Committee decisions could be taken by the Chief Executive following consultation with:

Chair and Vice Chair if they were from different political groups; or

Chair and Vice Chair, plus main opposition group spokesperson for the Committee / Sub-Committee.

This has ensured that the authority’s urgency process involved consultation with the political groups.  However, this did not take account of Independent Chairs and Vice Chairs, did not allow for the possible formation of new groups and it did not allow for situations where the Council might have, say, a Labour Chair and an Independent Vice Chair, as at least one political group would not be consulted.

It was therefore proposed that the Council Procedure Rules were amended to require consultation as follows:

Chair and Vice Chair, plus the main spokesperson for each other political group represented on the Committee / Sub-Committee.

Resolved                                    -    That Council:

(1)       Agrees to amend the Council Procedure Rules to remove the current limit on motions of one per Group at each Council meeting; and

(2)       Approves an amendment to the Council Procedure Rules to add the revised restrictions on motions proposed in paragraph 3.2 of the report; and

(3)       Agrees to amend the composition of the Leaders Policy Development Board as set out in paragraph 3.3 of the report; and

(4)       Agrees to amend the Scheme of Delegation to Officers as set out in paragraph 3.4 of the report in respect of the Flying The Flag Policy; and

(5)       Agrees to amend the Council Procedure Rules as set out in paragraph 3.5 of the report in respect of those to be consulted when decisions are taken under emergency powers.