Issue - meetings
Constitution Review Part B
Meeting: 26/02/2019 - General Purposes Committee (Item 4)
4 Constitution Review Part B PDF 106 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix 1 - Draft Part B of the new Constitution, item 4 PDF 889 KB
- Appendix 2 - Current Corporate Scheme of Delegation, item 4 PDF 113 KB
- Appendix 3 - Petition Scheme with proposed amendments, item 4 PDF 155 KB
Minutes:
Members were reminded that as set out in reports to the previous two General Purposes Committee meetings, officers are working through a refresh of the Council’s Constitution.
It was noted that this report presents a draft copy of the new Part B of the constitution for consideration by the Committee. The Committee noted that its views were welcomed both in terms of specific changes as well as the general thrust of this review. The draft will then be amended following any comments from the Committee (and elsewhere) and then combined with later Parts to form a fully refreshed constitution to be presented to Full Council.
The Committees review and comments on the draft Part B of the new constitution are set out below:
The Committee:
- Was advised that the review is not yet complete but it has so far resulted in a Part B which is approximately 160 pages compared to 250 in the current constitution;
- Note that some of the above mentioned changes is accounted for by moving content to Part D but it does highlight the effectiveness of creating a main constitution that is both shorter and easier to read;
- Noted that Local Authority Functions are split between Executive Functions which are the responsibility of the Mayor and Executive and then Non-Executive Functions which are the responsibility of Council and its Committees;
- Noted that the Council Functions set out at the start of Part B of the constitution derive from specific legislation and cannot be the responsibility of the Executive. The Council is required to set out where there are delegations of Council functions to Committees and officers. Where the delegation is to be exercised by a Committee/Officer, the matters reserved to the Committee are specified in the relevant Committee’s functions and terms of reference set out in Section 20;
- In relation to Council Functions, most derive from specific legislation. When changes to legislation require it, the Monitoring Officer would update the Council Functions’ Section necessary;
- Were advised that when the Selection of Councillors on Committees took place at the Annual Meeting, the Council also elected Chairs to those Committees except where appointments have been delegated by the Council or are exercisable only by the Mayor or Executive;
- Noted that when the Mayor leads the `Annual State of Borough’ debate there would be a debate for 1 hour to provide an opportunity for a discussion on policy matters and issues affecting the Council and the Borough. The debate would begin with a 15 minute introduction by the Mayor with the remaining 45 minutes will be divided proportionally (to the nearest minute) between the political groups on the council. It was proposed to now include a rule ensuring opposition group(s) must have a minimum of 5 minutes speaking time);
- Noted that it will be for each group to determine how much time each of their speakers will have subject to a minimum allocated speech length of two minutes;
- Noted there is to be no maximum speech length providing that ... view the full minutes text for item 4