To consider amendments to the council’s constitution proposed by the governance improvement working group, and to agree recommendations to Council.

The vice chairman introduced the report and the monitoring officer made a presentation on the revised constitution highlighting the following points:

·         A cross political working group had been convened in 2014 to consider how governance arrangements could be improved.   The constitution had been revised following extensive consultation with all members and based on the adopted four design principles. 

If the revised constitution was approved by Council on 16 December, the following key changes would take place:

·                     The size of committees would be smaller between 7-9 members. 

·                     There would be three scrutiny committees rather than the existing two with clearer arrangements for task and finish groups and call in. 

·                     There would be a planning and regulatory committee with a licensing sub committee.

·                     There would be Members’ training between January and April 2017, with the new constitution being implemented in May 2017. 

The Chairman exercised his discretion to allow members of the working group to speak.   

In response to a member’s question about the flexibility of the timing of committees being left to the committee chairs, it was confirmed that the working group had discussed this issue in detail.   It was noted that the flexibility of meetings could be further discussed in the proposed guidance and training sessions which would take place between January and April.      

It was noted that the basis for the new constitution was flexibility.   If it was proving to be inflexible, then the committee would have an opportunity to review it. 

In answer to a member’s questions about the role of group leaders and the attendance at cabinet and being able to speak, it was confirmed that group leaders would have the ability to speak at cabinet as they do under the current constitution    It was further noted that a new part of the constitution enables political groups to be able to feed in their views on key decisions being taken more formally and to have more influence on the decisions being taken. 

There was a need to revise the way in which members engage in the decision making process. The member development working group was looking at the training programme for members. 

The working group had requested the facility of members of the public and members to ask questions which would encourage greater public engagement and participation. 

In response to a member’s question about the forward plan, it was confirmed that a forward plan of all key decisions was publically available on the council’s website.   

It was agreed that an annual review of the constitution would be added to the work programme.

The working group were congratulated and thanked for their work on revising the constitution.

 RESOLVED: 

(a)  That the revised constitution be recommended to full Council for adoption.

(b)  That authority is delegated to the solicitor to the council to make technical amendments (grammatical, formatting and consistency) necessary to finalise the revised constitution.

(c)  That the standards working support the monitoring officer in undertaking a review of the councillor code of conduct and the associated member codes; and

(d)   That the monitoring officer be asked to obtain volunteers from the committee to be members of the standards working group.