Agenda item

The new Council leadership want policy and scrutiny committees to have the opportunity to debate and make recommendations on matters requiring an executive decision before a final decision is taken.  This report annexes a report which the Executive are due to consider and seeks Members’ views which will be fed back to the Executive.  The report also asks Members whether to consider further changes to Council Procedure Rules.

Members considered a paper which annexed a report on governance issues that was due to be considered by the Executive on 30 July 2015.   The report also asked Members to consider whether further changes were required to the Council Procedure Rules.

Executive Decision Making

Members noted that the new Council leadership wanted policy and scrutiny committees to have the opportunity to debate and make recommendations on matters requiring an executive decision before a final decision was taken.  The views of the Audit and Governance Committee on the proposals would be reported to the Executive when they considered the matter.

Members made the following comments:

·        There was general support for the opportunities for greater cross-party Member involvement in decision making and increased pre-scrutiny

·        It was important to recognise the realities of political control and the fact that although the proposals offered greater opportunities for Member involvement in the decision making process, the Council would still operate a Leader and Cabinet model of decision making. The Executive would not have to comply with the recommendations of scrutiny.

·        Some concerns were expressed regarding the complexity of the proposed processes.

·        Members’ role in respect of ward committees was also to be enhanced and therefore issues in respect of capacity and resources to support the proposed new arrangements would also need to be considered. 

·        Some Members suggested that a two week timescale for call-in was too long and would cause unnecessary delay.

·        It was recommended that the new arrangements be reviewed after six months or a year.

Officers clarified the options in respect of the membership of the Corporate and Scrutiny Management Committee.  Members’ attention was also drawn to the need to ensure that effective urgency procedures were in place.

Council Procedure Rules

Following the recent introduction of new Council Procedure Rules, Members were also asked to indicate:

·        Whether there was a wish to revisit the issue of written questions

·        Whether the Committee would support the introduction of a Deputy Leader’s report to Council

Members agreed that, as there had only been one Council meeting since the new procedures had been introduced, it was too soon to judge whether changes were necessary in respect of the arrangements for questions.

Differing views were expressed as to whether a Deputy Leader’s report to Council should be introduced.  Whilst some Members suggested that there may be differences in the views of the Leader and the Deputy Leader and therefore both should have the opportunity to present a report, the majority of those present agreed that as a coalition arrangement was in place separate reports were not required, particularly in view of the amount of Council business that had to be dealt with at the meetings and the time constraints.

Resolved:  (i)      That the views of the committee in respect of the

proposed executive decision making arrangements be reported to the Executive for their consideration.

(ii)      That the Committee did not wish to recommend that the issue of written questions be revisited at this time, as the new system had not yet been sufficiently tested to identify whether changes were required.

                   (iii)     That the Committeedid not support the

introduction of a Deputy Leader’s report to Council.

Reasons:   (i)      To enable revised decision making arrangements

                             to be put in place.

(i)           To ensure that the Council meeting continues to

          be a forum for constructive challenge and

          debate.