Philip McCourt, Director of Law and Governance introduced his report that provided the Committee with an overview in respect to the implementation of the change in governance arrangements following the adoption of a new Constitution by the Council at the Annual Meeting held on the 28September 2020. The report was divided into three parts: Implementation of the Committee programme, Training Update, and Constitution Review and Work Programme

The Director of Law and Governance informed Members that the Council had now completed its first cycle of committee meetings and that lessons continued to be learned.

Steve Fox, Head of Democratic Services provided a brief analysis of briefings for committees, amount of time and demand on member time – partly a result of remote meetings. He further informed of the ongoing training update project (for both Members and Officers) that included Induction and the Members Portal.

Members focused questions to the Director of Law and Governance on the Change in Governance Arrangements and update on implementation including methods to prioritise the work programme for the Constitution and Standards Committee, these included:

• Member Code of Conduct – Subject of a separate report to this meeting.
• Financial Regulations – These have been updated to accommodate the change to the Committee system but are due a further and complete review will be undertaken in coming months. This will seek to simplify the Financial Regulations and give consideration to shortening them, with day to day detailed material transferring to a Financial Handbook.
• Contract Procedure Rules (Standing Orders) – Minor amendments have been made and updates included, such as transposing the Social Value Policy into the rules, but a full review is required in due course.
• Whistleblowing Policy – This is a review, considered by the Audit and Risk management Policy, that is almost complete and a report is to come before Members shortly but has not yet been considered.
• The list of appointments to outside bodies will also require a review in due course.

Members of the current Governance Working Group had identified and noted that experience is likely to highlight a number of issues that the Committee may wish to consider in greater detail. Officers have also identified issues that they would like Members to give further consideration to. With that in mind, the Constitution and Standards Committee was requested to nominate Members to sit on a Governance Working Group and further request the Director of Law and Governance to make arrangements for that group to discuss the following:

• Public Statements – clarification in respect to speaking on non-procedural items and deadline for registering to speak.
• Review of the Petition Scheme/deadline for submission.
• Interruption of the meeting - clarification in respect to Standing Orders 9.1 and 15.11
• A further discussion in respect to the Media Guidelines.
• Meeting times.
• Substitutes for Decision Review Committee when a Member has a conflict of interest.

Members questioned the Director of Law and Governance on his report. The Director responded and stated that these and other issues were best left to the Governance Working Group to consider, and that he was content that all Members put forward issues for consideration to him, or feed them through to the Working Group.

Note: Changes to membership of the Governance Working Group were to be notified to the Director of Law and Governance after the meeting, and are summarised at Recommendation 3 below.

RESOLVED – That

(1) the report be noted;

(2)  additional items for consideration by the Constitution and Standards Committee be fed through to the Director of Law and Governance; and

(3)  a Governance Working Group be established, comprising:

Councillors

Tony Cox, Chris Cooke, Phil Gilchrist, Steve Hayes andGill Wood.

Note – all political group leaders also be invited to attend meetings of the Governance Working Group.