Agenda and minutes

Cllr Marson, Cllr Nicholson (Substitute Cllr Harrison), Parish Cllr Way

To approve the Minutes of the meeting of Standards Committee held on 6 June 2013, copy attached.

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed and signed by the Chairman

To receive any declarations of interest.  Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest form attached at the back of this agenda.  If a Member declares an interest, they should complete that form and hand it to the officer clerking the meeting and then take the prescribed course of action.

There were no declarations of interest

Verbal Report

The Chairman expressed his disappointment that no acknowledgement or reply had been received to the letter written to the LGA (the letter is attached in the minutes).  The Monitoring Officer was requested to write again to the LGA.

Noted

Report withdrawn

Noted

Noted

Karen Paton, Strategic Procurement Manager was in attendance and introduced the item.

Moved: Cllr Roberts

Seconded: Cllr Johnston

Resolved:  to recommend to full council the amendments to the Contract Standing Orders and Purchasing Guide as shown in Annex’s 1 and 2, such amendments relating to the following areas:

·  Reinforcement of Conflict of Interest and confidentiality undertaking protocols including addition of “Conflict of Interest” contract clause as standard for contracts valued £10K and over.

·  Inclusion of obligations and requirements of the council in respect of Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012.

·  Realignment of headings of Standard Contract Clauses to the council’s General Conditions of Contract

·  Non-material amendments to Job Titles and Section headings to align with the current council structure/establishment.

·  Authorisation to the Strategic Procurement Manager to undertake such non-material amendments as a result of restructures, as required from time to time, without the requirement to revert to the Constitutional Review Working Party, provided that a report on amendments be brought to the next available meeting of the Constitutional Review Working Party.”

Moved:  Cllr Grove

Seconded: Town Cllr Lawson

Resolved:

§  That the Standards Committee approves and recommends to Council the amendment to the Financial Procedure Rules to require the reporting of all aged debt over £150,000 to the next available ordinary council meeting.

§  That the Standards Committee approves and recommends to Council that the timeline for reporting debts shall be 60 days for those debts with standard payment terms of 0 or 30 days and 90 days for those debts with payment terms of 60 days regardless of whether or not the debt has been paid in full or in part between the expiry of the 60 or 90 day period (whatever the case may be) and the date of the next available ordinary Council meeting.

§  That the Standards Committees recommends for Council approval the amendments to Financial Procedure Rule (Regulation D: Systems and Procedures), as set out at Annex 1.

Moved: Cllr E Green

Seconded: Cllr Grove

Resolved: the Standards Committee recommends to full Council that the revised Planning Protocol be approved.

Following debate, the Standards Committee supported Option 2 with the proviso that the Chairman of any meeting being filmed should announce the fact before the meeting starts.

Proposed: Cllr Roberts

Seconded: Cllr Harrison

Resolved:  To recommend Option 2 to full council with the additional words ‘The chairman will announce at the beginning of the meeting that it is being filmed.’

Proposed: Cllr Grove

Seconded: Cllr Johnston

Resolved:  The Standards Committee resolved to make the following table of recommendations to full Council:

Moved:  Cllr Harrison

Seconded:  Cllr Mrs Johnston

Resolved:  The Standards Committee made the following recommendation to Council:

“16.3  Putting the Motion at the Meeting

The Member whose name appears first on the Notice will move the motion during his or her speech and call for a seconder. If seconded and  the mover of the motion is a member of a political group other than the ruling political group, the Chairman will call upon a member of the ruling political group to reply. If seconded and the mover of the motion is a member of the ruling political group, the Chairman will call upon a member of one of the other political groups to reply. In such circumstances the Chairman will call upon a member of the second largest political group unless, exceptionally and based upon the nature of the motion, the Chairman considers it appropriate to call upon a member of another political group (other than a member of the ruling political group) to reply. The motion shall then stand referred without further discussion to the Cabinet or appropriate Committee for determination or report unless the Council decides to debate the motion in accordance with Rule 19.”

Moved:   Cllr Grove

Seconded:  Cllr Fletcher

Resolved:   To recommend that the Council removes references to the Standards Board for England from the Constitution.

The Standards Committee agreed that the Petition Scheme should become a Protocol rather than a Procedure and agreed to make the following recommendation to Council:

Moved:  Cllr Lawson

Seconded: Cllr Roberts

Resolved:  Recommendation to Council that paragraphs 12.0 to 12.9 of the Council Procedure Rules be moved to Part 5 of the Council’s constitution and the following new paragraph 12.0 be added.

“12.0  Petitions from the Public

The Council will receive, accept and deal with petitions from members of the public in accordance with the requirements of any Petitions Scheme from time to time adopted by the Council.  The Council’s current Petitions Scheme is included in Part 5 of the Council’s constitution.”

Cllr King requested to speak under Rule 24:1, there were no objections.

Cllr King was disappointed with the proposal, he felt it was unnecessary and undemocratic as increasing the number of members from 5 to 7 required to requisition an extraordinary meeting undermined smaller independent groups who would need the support of one of the larger groups to succeed.  Cllr King made the point that neighbouring councils require 5 members to requisition an extraordinary meeting.

Cllr Gove agreed with Cllr King and the Monitoring Officer to explain why the number had increased from 5 to 7 members.

The Monitoring Officer explained that a quorum was a quarter of the membership and therefore it was recommended that an increase to 7 members would represent an eighth of the membership.

Moved:  Cllr Johnston

Seconded: Cllr Harrison

Resolved:  To recommend to full Council the wording recommended by the Constitutional Review Working Party with the additional words at 3.1 (iv): ‘to be reviewed if the number of members increases or decreases.

Cllr King left the meeting

Moved:  Cllr Mrs Green

Seconded:  Cllr Tomlinson

Resolved:  That the Standards Committee recommends to Council the following wording be removed from Council Procedure Rule 2.2:

“The total time (including time slots as mentioned above) will be limited to 31 minutes”.