Agenda item

This report invites the Council to consider its non-executive and regulatory Committee arrangements for the Council Year May 2016 to May 2017 and associated annual business.

The Council considered a report regarding the non-executive and regulatory committee arrangements for the Council year 2016/17 and proposing various changes to the Constitution.  In introducing this report, Councillor Tim Warren announced that he had appointed Councillor Paul Myers to a new Cabinet portfolio for one year - Policy, Localism & Partnerships.

On a motion from Councillor Tim Warren, seconded by Councillor Charles Gerrish, it was

RESOLVED

1.  To approve a structure for non-executive and regulatory decision making, and the scrutiny function as set out in the Constitution and identified in its current form in the report at Appendix 1;

2.  To note that there has been a change to the political group numbers, and agree that the status quo on proportionality will remain until confirmation of future group numbers has been achieved, when a review will be brought to a future Council meeting;

3.  To approve the terms of reference for Committees and Panels etc as set out in Appendix 1 to the report and constitute those bodies accordingly;

4.  To appoint as Chairs of such bodies, those Councillors as may from time to time be nominated by the political group to whom the chairmanship of the body is allocated;

5.  To authorise the Monitoring Officer to fill any casual vacancies in membership of all the bodies constituted and vacancy in the office of Chair of such bodies in accordance with the wishes of the political groups and the allocation of chairing entitlements made at this meeting;

6.  To determine the bodies on which independent members (if any) are to have seats as either voting or non-voting members and appoint such members accordingly;

7.  To authorise the Monitoring Officer, in consultation with the Chairs of the Policy Development & Scrutiny Panels, to constitute and support any required Panel joint working as out lined in paragraph 6.1;

8.  To note that an Independent Panel to consider members’ allowances has  been established and that it will report its recommendations to the next convenient Council meeting;

9.  To instruct the Monitoring Officer, in consultation with Group Leaders, to make appointments on non-executive outside bodies and note that the Leader or Cabinet Members will do so for executive outside bodies, where such vacancies arise;

10.To note that the Monitoring Officer has made an amendment to the Constitution as set out in paragraph 7.2;

11.To approve the amendments to the Council’s Constitution as set out in Appendix 2 to the report, subject to an addition to row 2 of Appendix 2 to the report relating to Constitutional rule 4A, 36 & 38 to enable the member who raised the original motion in debate to have an opportunity to respond to points made in the debate, even if the original motion has been successfully amended, before the right of reply goes to the mover of the substantive motion;

12.To agree changes to the Public Rights of Way delegation scheme as described in section 7.3;

13.To note the position regarding the frequency of meetings (as set out in Section 8) as the basis for enabling the diary of meetings to be prepared, and to authorise the Monitoring Officer to project dates forward and prepare the diary on this basis; and

14.To authorise the Monitoring Officer to make and publicise any amendment to the Council’s Constitution required, or take any other necessary action, as a result of decisions taken at this meeting on this and other reports within the agenda, or otherwise as required by law.

[Notes:

1.  The underlined section in resolution 11 comprises wording suggested by Councillor Dine Romero and accepted into the substantive motion by the mover and seconder as a minor adjustment to the wording.

2.  During debate, an unsuccessful amendment was moved by the Liberal Democrats to the effect of removing those proposed changes to the Constitution which set limits on the public speaking scheme.  This was lost, with 19 Councillors voting in favour and 40 against.  Councillor Nigel Roberts wished his vote in favour of this amendment to be recorded.

3.  The successful resolution was carried with 45 Councillor voting in favour, 13 Councillors voting against and 1 abstention.]