Issue - meetings
Members' attendance and timesheets
Meeting: 16/04/2013 - Standards Advisory Committee (Item 4)
4 Members' attendance and timesheets PDF 133 KB
Minutes:
Special Circumstances and Reasons for Urgency
Mr John Williams, Service Head Democratic Services, informed SAC members of the special circumstances/ reasons for urgency for the report as below.
“Officers delayed circulation/ publication of the report, beyond the normal timescales of the Authority for this, in order that SAC could be provided with the most up to date information in relation to the matters reported in the paper.”
The Chair subsequently agreed the special circumstances and reasons for urgency, indicating that he was satisfied that the matter was urgent, as defined in the Authority’s Constitution (Part 4 Rules of Procedure, Section 4.2 Access to Information Procedure Rules, Rule 6 Items of Business, sub paragraphs 6.3 and 6.5. The special circumstances justifying urgency being as detailed above.
Mr John Williams, Service Head Democratic Services:
· Introduced and summarised key points in the report, which provided an update on a range of matters related to Councillors attendance at formal meetings and training events, completion of timesheets and the Register of Interests.
· Informed SAC members that he had Tabled an updated version of Appendix 1 to the report “Members Monthly Timesheets – Summary of Returns” which reflected the most current information, a copy of which would be interleaved with the minutes.
· Highlighted that the updated Appendix 1 which had been tabled reported that 16 Councillors were over 3 months in arrears with completion of their timesheets, and some Councillors had not completed a timesheet at all in the current Municipal Year 2012/13; and the SAC Chair may wish to consider raising this matter with the Councillors concerned and/ or their political group leaders/ whips.
· Updated SAC members on the introduction of a new online/ self-serve facility for completion of Member timesheets and declaration of interest forms. All Members would be fully briefed once the modern.gov committee management software had been fully tested in this area; and it was intended that Member training in use of the software would be included in the normal Member training programme associated with the Council AGM.
A discussion followed which focused on the following points:-
· Welcomed the introduction of a new online/ self-serve facility for completion of Member timesheets and declaration of interest forms, as both helpful and likely to improve Member performance with submission of this information.
· Consideration that the current Member timesheet included a number of categories that were no longer relevant, and could include alternatives that were more useful in showing the activities of Members. Councillor Saunders accordingly Proposed that the online timesheet be updated to better reflect the current activities of Members.
· Clarification sought and given as to whether the monitoring of Member activities in this was still relevant given the absence of tough sanctions. Monitoring was still relevant, for example although the Localism Act 2011 had removed the requirement to declare certain types of interest, the Council’s own Member’s Code of Conduct required it.
· Clarification sought and given as to whether Member non-attendance at statutory training for some committees, and the impact of this on ... view the full minutes text for item 4