Agenda item

Nick Hughes introduced the report and made the following comments:

·  The Council constitution required reviewing and updating regarding the some of the conditions for asking a question at Full Council;

·  If a Councillor asked a question, that same question cannot be asked by any other councillor within six months. However, a member of the public could still ask that same question within that same six months’ period;

·  The wording should be that if a question is asked by either a member of the public or a Councillor, that question cannot be asked within a period of six months of that question being asked;

·  There was also a need to review the definition of what a validly received question meant and what is meant to happen to a similar question that was subsequently also validly submitted for the same meeting. Currently both questions would be accepted and could be asked at Full Council;

·  This needed reviewing so that once a question was validly submitted and received, then no similar question could be validly submitted and received.

Members made comments and asked questions as follows:

·  What dialogue should there be for appealing a decision to disallow a question for being similar to the one asked in the last six months?

·  Did Officers communicate to the councillor whose question would have been rejected for being similar to a previously asked question?

·  How were these changes being proposed brought to the Constitutional Review Working Party?

·  One Member said that they had brought some observations regarding constitutional provisions but these had not been progressed further to the point of being brought before the Working Party for consideration;

·  The Petitions Scheme did not allow for residents to bring issues to the Council more expeditiously;

·  The Member further asked how the above issues could be brought to the Working Party.

Nick Hughes responded to Member questions as follows:

·  Democratic Services did the basic check to ensure the question was in compliance to set rules before forwarding it to the Monitoring Officer for final sign-off;

·  If even during basic checks Democratic Services were not too sure, they would forward the question to the Monitoring Officer and if still unsure the question would then be referred to the CEx;

·  If inclined to reject the question the CEx would then ask the Council Chair for a second opinion;

·  Democratic Services did not give the wording of the previous question to the councillor whose question would have been rejected;

·  Democratic Services usually faced the challenge of receiving Member questions right towards the deadline;

·  Democratic Services picked up issues in the constitution that require reviewing;

·  Members could also suggest issues for review and although there was no written down protocol for submitting such issues, Members could flag up these issues to the Monitoring Officer.

Councillor Everitt proposed, Councillor Will Scobie seconded and the Constitutional Review Working Party members unanimously agreed to forward recommendations to the Standards Committee as per the recommendations section of the working party report which are detailed below:

1.  To amend Part 4, Rules of Procedure, paragraph 13.5 of the Council’s constitution to read:

“The Chief Executive will reject a question if it: .......

is substantially the same as a question which has been validly received or put at a meeting of the Council in the past six months by either a Councillor or a member of the public;”

2.  To amend Part 4, Rules of Procedure, paragraph 14.6 of the Council’s constitution to read:

“A question shall not be: .........

substantially the same as a question which has been validly received or put at a meeting of the Council in the past six months by either a Councillor or a member of the public.”