Question
The Constitution of the Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor repeatedly welcomes the involvement of the Borough's residents in Council Meetings which are open to the public.
Maidenhead's Constitution, like Wokingham's, is silent on the issue of Points of Order being raised by a member of the public.
Maidenhead have adopted a simple, common sense, and entirely workable solution as advised to me by their Democratic Services office on March 6 earlier this month; namely, at a Maidenhead Council meeting, a Point of Order can be raised by amember of the public and will be dealt with there and then entirely at the discretion of the Chairman.
Will Wokingham Borough Council adopt the same policy and so put an end to the unfortunate situation which has manifested itself at the last two Full Council meetings where a member of the public, indeed it was me, attempted unsuccessfully to raise a Point of Order but it was deemed totally out of order and immediately dismissed by the Deputy Mayor and the Mayor respectively on the guidance of the Chief Executive.
Minutes:
Question
The Constitution of the Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor repeatedly welcomes the involvement of the Borough's residents in Council Meetings which are open to the public.
Maidenhead's Constitution, like Wokingham's, is silent on the issue of Points of Order being raised by a member of the public.
Maidenhead have adopted a simple, common sense, and entirely workable solution as advised to me by their Democratic Services office on March 6 earlier this month; namely, at a Maidenhead Council meeting, a Point of Order can be raised by amember of the public and will be dealt with there and then entirely at the discretion of the Chairman.
Will Wokingham Borough Council adopt the same policy and so put an end to the unfortunate situation which has manifested itself at the last two Full Council meetings where a member of the public, indeed it was me, attempted unsuccessfully to raise a Point of Order but it was deemed totally out of order and immediately dismissed by the Deputy Mayor and the Mayor respectively on the guidance of the Chief Executive?
Answer
In the absence of the Executive Member for Resident Services, Councillor Alison Swaddle provided the following answer:
I note your comments about the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s process. Here in Wokingham we also welcome the involvement of residents in Council meetings by enabling them, as you have, to submit a public question.
However, even Parliament does not allow members of the public to raise points of order. In fact, in Duhaime’s law dictionary, it specifies that a point of order is a legal procedure in Parliament referring to an interjection during a meeting by a member who doesn’t have the floor to call the attention of the chair to an alleged breach of the meetings rules of order.
If a Member believes that there has been a breach of Council Rules of Procedure or the law then a Member is able to raise a Point of Order and I think that is the correct process.
I believe it could be disruptive to allow members of the public the ability to interrupt the meeting under the premise of raising Points of Order and will therefore not be proposing adoption of the policy as you suggest.
Supplementary Question
A Point of Order is an appeal to the Chair for clarification or ruling on a matter of procedure in the chamber at that moment in time. Anyone raising a Point of Order must explain the reasons for believing an error has or is about to be committed and the Chair decides whether it is valid or not. A Point of Order is a long established custom in British political life and Wokingham’s reluctance to recognise it is lamentable. It could be that you wish to conduct Council meetings purely on a culture of pre-submitted questions and pre-digested replies drawn up, perhaps, with the assistance of Council officials. Points of Order introduce spontaneity and the need to think on your feet. Quite possibly some Members might find this uncomfortable. I ask you whether the opinion you have expressed in your reply has the support of the Executive as a whole and indeed has the support of the majority of the Members of the Council.
Supplementary Answer
The answer I have given you this evening was supplied by Councillor Jorgensen who has had to send her apologies this evening, so I will be asking Councillor Jorgensen to supply a written answer to your question.
Note: the following supplementary answer was provided after the meeting by Councillor Jorgensen.
I have not asked Council or Executive’s opinion on my response as I did not feel it was necessary to ask them about the definition of phrases which are clearly defined in legal books on procedure. Our Constitution Review Working Group did however consider the section on “points of order” and also whether it would be appropriate to include a paragraph in the Constitution setting out public speaking rights.
The cross party CRWG felt that it was quite clear in the Constitution that only Members could raise a point of order and decided it was not sensible to include any wording negating public speaking rights in this area as there was a likelihood that this would cause further ambiguity in areas where intent was inferred rather than explicit. For example, if we had an exhaustive list of all things that were not applicable against each point in the Constitution the document would probably be even more long and unwieldy.
This conclusion was reported at February Council and at no point did any Member raise any objection to CRWG’s findings.