Agenda item

To receive a report from the Monitoring Officer setting out proposed changes to the Constitution as considered by the Constitution Review Working Group.

RECOMMENDATION that Council agree the following changes to the Constitution, as recommended by the Monitoring Officer, via the Constitution Review Working Group:

1)              the deadline for public and Member questions, that relate to items on the agenda or urgent matters, be amended, as set out in Paragraph 1 of the report;

2)              that Section Rule 4.2.9.9 Written Answers, be amended as set out in Paragraph 2 of the report;

3)              that Section 4.2.8.1 Consideration of motions and Section 4.2.11.3 Motion set out in Agenda be amended as set out in Paragraph 3 of the report;

4)              that Section 4.2.11.3 Motion set out in Agenda, be amended as set out in Paragraph 4 of the report;

5)              that Section 4.2.13.1 No Speeches Until Motion Seconded, be amended as set out in Paragraph 5 of the report;

6)              that Section 4.2.13.13 Motions on Expenditure or Revenue, as set out in Paragraph 6 of the report, be added to the Constitution;

7)       that Section 8.1 Planning Committee Terms of Reference be amended as set out in Paragraph 7 of the report;

8)       that Sections 8.7.1 Function and Composition of School Transport Appeals Panel and 8.7.2 Meetings of the School Transport Appeals Panel, be amended as set out in Paragraph 8 of the report;

9)       that Section 9.1.12 Process for Dealing with Misconduct Complaints be amended as set out in Appendix 1 to the report;

10)     amendments to various sections of the Constitution, put forward by the Head of Legal Services, and as set out in Paragraph 10 of the report be agreed.

The Council considered a report regarding Changes to the Constitution.

It was proposed by Stuart Munro and seconded by John Kaiser that the recommendations set out within the report be agreed.

Stuart Munro took Council through the proposed changes to the Constitution.

Sarah Kerr expressed concern around recommendation 6.  She understood the need to have transparency over the cost implications of decisions made but queried the definition of a ‘significant sum of money.’  She asked the Council to consider the negative consequences of the proposed amendment and indicated that a Climate Emergency would not have been declared had the amendment been in place at the time.  The full cost implications of this declaration were still unknown some time later.  Sarah Kerr asked that the Chairman of the Constitution Review Working Group remove recommendation 6 from the report and take it back to the Constitution Review Working Group for further consideration.  She emphasised that some Councillors who wished to raise issues of concern to residents may not always have full access to cost implications.  Sarah Kerr questioned the rationale of sending the Motion to the Executive. 

Sarah Kerr proposed that should recommendation 6 be removed, that recommendation 1, 2 and 3 be voted on separately, and that recommendations 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 be voted on separately and that should recommendation 6 not be removed from the report, that it be voted on with recommendations 1, 2 and 3.  This was seconded by Imogen Shepherd-DuBey. 

Imogen Shepherd-DuBey felt that the current threshold proposed around recommendation 6 was not high enough and that not all matters could be fully costed in advance.

Stuart Munro did not accept the removal of recommendation 6.  He commented that the threshold had been proposed by the Head of Legal, and felt that should the amendment prove problematic, it could be reviewed again.

Rachel Burgess was of the view that recommendation 6 around the costing of Motions was undemocratic.

Voting on the proposal to remove recommendation 6 and to request that it be reconsidered by the Constitution Review Working Group was as follows.

The amendment was declared by the Mayor to be lost.

Imogen Shepherd-DuBey spoke to the original proposal as not amended.  She commented that there were many proposals that the Liberal Democrats could support, but some such as extending the deadline for submitting questions, that they could not.  She welcomed the amendments to the Standards Committee terms of reference.