Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from the following members:

Councillor Farooki;

Councillor Pope;

Councillor Scobie.

To receive any declarations of interest. Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest advice attached to this Agenda. If a Member declares an interest, they should complete the Declaration of Interest Form

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

Report to follow

The Chair invited Mr Stephen O’Grady to speak under the Overview and |Scrutiny Panel procedure rules for public speaking. Mr O’Grady made the following points:

·  Mr O’Grady said that he was not at the meeting to tell the Panel what to recommend to Cabinet, but wanted to highlight some objections behalf of the Free Speech Union regarding the public consultation process for the proposed PSPO;

·  The Union did not have any objections regarding the PSPO in principle;

·  The Union was concerned about whether sufficient information had been provided to the public  regarding the PSPO proposals;

·  The Union felt that there was insufficient information that was provided to the public;

·  Conscious objections should have been considered by the Council. However no mention was made of these objections by the Council;

·  The Union felt that Cabinet did not have all the information when it made the decision on the PSPO proposals on 25 July 2024;

·  The Union agreed that the Council was not obliged to conduct the public consultation. However once it had conducted the consultation, the Council should have considered objections made by the public;

·  Mr O’Grady said that some of the prohibitions being proposed in the new PSPO would infringe on the human rights of the public. The specific law on PSPOs required specific regard to the human rights;

·  The terms of the proposed PSPO failed to meet the legal requirements;

·  The proposed PSPO had far too much discretion given to enforcement  officers;

·  The PSPO should set boundaries for enforcement officers;

·  Implementing the Order in its current form would risk the Council facing litigation;

·  Mr O’Grady asked that the Cabinet decision be rescinded and the process be started afresh.

The Chair advised the meeting that item 5 on the agenda was a restricted item and could only be discussed in detail in a private session.

Ingrid Brown, Head of Legal and Democracy & Monitoring Officer introduced the report and made the following comments:

·  In discussing this call-in the Panel could not act as a court of law;

·  What the Monitoring Officer would say in the open session of the meeting would be legally confined as most of the detail was contained in the confidential document;

·  However the detail provided in the public report was enough for the Panel to come up with a view on the matter;

·  The Panel could not revoke the Cabinet decision, but just advise Cabinet on a course of action after reviewing the Cabinet decision in question;

·  The Panel Chair received a letter from the Free Speech Union about the potential legal challenge regarding the 25 July 2024 Cabinet decision;

·  The Monitoring Officer determined that there were enough grounds for a call-in as a proper consultation was not duly done;

·  The Overview and Scrutiny Panel had reviewed the Cabinet proposals on 18 June 2024 and 16 July 2024;

·  Changes were made to the original PSPO proposals before they were agreed by Cabinet on 25 July;

·  The current PSPO was due to expire at the end of July  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

Councillor Fellows proposed, Councillor Davis seconded and the Panel agreed that the public and press be excluded from the meeting for agenda item 5 as it contains exempt information as defined in Paragraph 5 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

The Panel went into a private session.

Once the discussion was concluded the meeting resumed as a public session and the livestreaming was also resumed and the Panel agreed on recommendations to forward to Cabinet as detailed in minute item 23.