Agenda item

Report by the Associate Director, Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer incorporating recommendations from the Standards Committee.

Council was invited to consider a report which gave details of a number of proposed changes to the Constitution as recommended by the Standards Committee.

The subject areas of the recommended changes were as follows:

a.         Amendments to the following protocols to the constitution:
- Protocol 2 - Councillor/ Officer Relations
- Protocol 3 - Guidance to Members on Outside Bodies
- Protocol 4 - Planning Code of Good Practice

b.         Registration and disclosure of additional interests and withdrawal from meetings where a councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest.

c.         Amendment of the standards committee’s terms of reference to remove the requirement for political proportionality in relation to the standards hearing sub-committee, standards review sub-committee and the standards dispensation sub-committee.

However, given the level of detail involved in the above mentioned proposed changes and the number of new members elected as recently as May 2013, it was proposed to defer consideration of these changes until the next meeting. A briefing for members could then be arranged to take place prior to the next meeting to explain the detail of the proposed changes and provide an opportunity for members to ask questions.

A suggestion was made that as all of the changes had been initially considered by the Focus Group on the Constitution and recommended by the Standards Committee, Council should be in a position to determine them at this meeting without deferral for a members’ briefing. At the very least it was suggested that recommendation (c ) above could be determined at this meeting as this was a straight forward matter and this was agreed.

c.       Amendment of the standards committee’s terms of reference to remove the requirement for political proportionality in relation to the standards hearing sub-committee, standards review sub-committee and the standards dispensation sub-committee.

This would open the membership of the sub-committees to more members, making it easier to appoint sub-committees for reviews and hearings within the timescales set down in the procedure. It would also help avoid any perception that the sub-committees were politically driven. It was noted that approval of such a measure would require no member voting against the proposal.

On being put to the vote, it was

Resolved:

1.         That Council approves an amendment to the terms of reference of the standards committee to remove the requirement for political proportionality in relation to its sub-committees, but including a requirement of a maximum of two elected members from any political group on any sub-committee. (no member voted against this decision).

2.  That consideration of the remaining proposed changes to the constitution as recommended by the Standards Committee be deferred until the next meeting to allow time to hold a members’ briefing on the proposed changes.