A report by the Head of Legal and Member Services and Monitoring

Officer (to follow).

The Head of Legal and Member Services and Monitoring Officer introduced his report that set out details of the constitutional review undertaken by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Working Group during this municipal year.

The Head of Legal and Member Services and Monitoring Officer reported that Working Group had considered the following matters and recommendations for consideration by the Committee as summarised in the Report Appendix included:

• Council Procedure Rules
• Call-in arrangements
• Employment and Appointment Committee’s Terms of Reference
• Scheme of Delegation to Officers – technical updates
• Procedure for Dealing with Referred Notices of Motions

Following a discussion by Members on the subject matter, procedures and reasoning behind the proposals i.e. to better reflect the working of Council, focus on the opportunity for debate at Council, streamlining of ordinary business and revised procedures to incorporate what worked well, and address those issues requiring improvement, a Member moved acceptance of the report.

The Committee agreed that in the interests of ensuring that a true reflection of the Committees views be recorded, a separate vote be put on each Amendment. As follows:

Amendment No. 1 – Change of Ordinary Council Meeting Times (Start 6.00pm and Finish 9.15pm).

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 2 – Commencement time for Matters Requiring Approval and Debates (NOMs).

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 3 - Only Proposer and Seconder required to sign Notice of Motion.

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 4 - Change of Order for dealing with Notices of Motion.

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 5 – Submission of Amendments to Notices of Motion.

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 6 – Procedure for Dealing with Referred Notices of Motion.

A Member re-iterated an early comment that such referrals also resulted in a two tier system for the handling of Notices of Motion (NoM) in so far as NoMs debated at Council would not take evidence from witnesses.

Agreed by majority vote.

Amendment No. 7 – Public and Member Question Time (Reduce allocation of time and change how questions are asked).

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 8 – Order of Business (Council Meetings).

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 9 – Speeches, restrictions and time limits.

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 10 – Call In.

Given disagreement between political groups on the proposed amendment, a vote was requested.

For the Amendment  5:  Against: 4.

Agreed by majority vote.

Amendment No. 11 – Employment and Appointments Committee (Terms of Reference).

Agreed unanimously.

Amendment No. 12 - Technical amendments.

Agreed unanimously.

Resolved: That

1)  the work of the Working Group to date and the planned work to be undertaken be noted;

2)  RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL – that the proposed changes to the Council’s Constitution set out at Appendix 1 to this report be agreed;

3)  RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL - that the Head of Legal and Member Services be authorised to make the necessary changes to the Constitution to give effect to the proposed changes set out at Appendix 1 to this report; and

4)  Subject to Council approving the proposed amendments to the Constitution at (2) above, the Procedure for Dealing with Referred Notices of Motion as set out in Appendix 2 to this report be approved and shall take effect as from 15 December 2015 onwards.