To receive a report of the Corporate Director for Governance & Community Strategy and Monitoring Officer.

The Committee received a report of the Corporate Director for Governance and Community Strategy detailing the recommendations of the cross-party Constitution Working Group (CWG) setup to review current practice in a number of areas, with the aim of improving openness, transparency and public engagement within the Council. The report was presented by the Executive Member for Constitutional Reform and Resident Engagement, and had recently been considered by the Standards Committee. The report would also be considered by the Executive before being presented to full Council on 28 November 2018. The CWG would be meeting again in January 2019 to discuss other areas which remained under review.

Members discussed the changes proposed in the report. It was felt that a process would need to be agreed on the proposals to allow members of the public to ask questions at meetings. How questions were managed at the meeting itself would be at the Chairs’ discretion, but it was suggested that any questions raised should be relevant to that Committee and its remit. It was also suggested that questions should be submitted in advance of the meeting to allow for these to be reviewed by the Legal Team to ensure they were relevant and not vexatious. The Head of Governance agreed to incorporate these comments and propose a process on how these questions were considered, which would be included in the final report to full Council. Members agreed with the proposals in principle, but were mindful of the difficulty already faced when trying to complete all business at some busy meetings, and felt that the addition of questions from members of the public could create further time pressures.

Some Members raised their concern about moving all meetings to paperless. Members agreed that an attempt should be made to have paperless meetings, but felt it would be difficult in some instances where large reports which required cross-referencing with previous reports were being considered.

The Committee were advised that proposals on motions at full Council had been presented to the Constitution Working Group, and Members of the Group had been asked to take these proposals back to their respective Political Groups for discussion and comment. Members were asked to provide their feedback to the Head of Governance. The proposals and any comments received on these could then be considered at the next CWG meeting in January 2019. Many Members remained frustrated by the time constraints at some full Council meetings where there was limited time available to speak on motions. It was agreed that something needed to change to improve debate, but whilst ensuring that limitations were not enforced which could dilute the democratic process.

Some Members asked whether the new signature threshold for debating petitions at full Council and Executive meetings were too low. Members were advised that analysis had been conducted against the petitions received by the Council in previous years, and the CWG Members had agreed these thresholds were adequate.

The Committee were generally in favour of the proposals which would improve openness and transparency within the Council.

RESOLVED:

1)    That a process for considering questions from members of the public at Committee meetings be formulated based on the discussion at the meeting and included in the final report to full Council.

2)    That the proposals in the report, incorporating the comments raised, be endorsed for referral to full Council.