Agenda item

Amendments to the Council's Constitution

Decision:

The Committee RECOMMENDED to Council: -

A) That the revised Access to Information Procedure Rules, as set out in Appendix A to the report, be adopted.

B) That, subject to officers investigating an explanation of the term ‘significant’, the Constitution be amended to reflect the new definitions of a key decision, as detailed in paragraph 9 of the report.

C) That paragraph 1.2 of the Executive Procedure Rules be amended to read “the Executive will meet at least six times per year at times to be agreed by the Leader”.

D) That paragraph 3.1 of the Executive Procedure Rules be amended to read “Individual Portfolio Holders may take decisions outside of a formal meeting where expedient to do so. Formal meetings, when held, will be held in public in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rules 1.3 and 1.6 above”.

E) That any reference to prejudicial interests in the Executive Procedure Rules be amended to read “disclosable pecuniary interests”.

F) That the following paragraph under the Responsibility for Council Functions on pages 41 and 42 of the Constitution in respect of the Corporate Governance Committee be removed: -

“to receive quarterly, the strategic risk register, covering reports and other associated documents presented to the appropriate portfolio holder, together with the minutes of the portfolio holder meetings, to monitor that the strategic risk register has been properly considered by the portfolio holder”.

G) That, subject to the Scrutiny and Overview Committee’s agreement, the name of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee be changed to “Overview and Scrutiny Committee”.

H) That the Constitution be amended to include the process set out in Appendix C for dealing with a Councillor Call for Action.

I) That the Scrutiny and Overview Committee be allocated as the Council’s Crime and Disorder Committee and it meets in this capacity at least once a year, or as required, and the Constitution be amended to reflect this accordingly.

J) That the term “Task and Finish Group” be used throughout the Constitution in place of the term “Task and Finish Panel”, where appropriate.

K) That paragraph 2.2 of the Council Procedure Rules be deleted.

Minutes:

The Democratic Services Team Leader presented a report setting out a number of proposed amendments to the Council’s Constitution. There were eleven main areas of the Constitution that required consideration as highlighted in the report, which Members were taken through. The Civic Affairs Committee was invited to consider the proposed amendments and determine whether it would formally recommend the changes to the meeting of Council scheduled to be held on 31 January 2013.

The publication of The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 meant that all local authorities were obliged to amend their procedures with regards to meetings and access to information. A revised version of the District Council’s Access to Information Procedure Rules, complying with the new requirements, was appended to the report. In addition, the Regulations changed the definition of a Key Decision. The first two definitions currently in the Constitution had been retained as the official definitions for a Key Decision, with definitions three to ten being deleted. The Committee sought clarity on the term ‘significant’ that appeared in both definitions and asked officers to investigate this prior to the meeting of the Council on 31 January 2013.

One of the proposed amendments referred to Portfolio Holder decisions and the fact that such decisions could be made outside of a formal meeting. Discussion ensued on this issue as South Cambridgeshire District Council had historically held public meetings for Portfolio Holder decisions in order that other Members had an opportunity to contribute and members of the public could attend. The Chairman stated that the proposed amendment only sought to add clarity to the Constitution around a Portfolio Holder’s right to take a decision outside of a public meeting, reminding the Committee that the Access to Information Procedure Rules and Call In would still apply.

The Corporate Governance Committee recently considered how it intended to review the Strategic Risk Register and agreed that this would be done through monitoring the Portfolio Holder’s review of the Risk Management Strategy. It was therefore necessary to remove paragraph (ii) under the Responsibility for Council Functions on pages 41 and 42 of the Constitution in respect of the Corporate Governance Committee.

The Chairman of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee had requested that the Committee be renamed as the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, to emphasis the overview aspect of its role. It was reported that the Scrutiny and Overview Committee was scheduled to consider this request at its meeting on 10 January 2013. The Civic Affairs Committee therefore supported the change of name, subject to agreement by the Scrutiny and Overview Committee.

It was proposed to add a process for dealing with a Councillor Call for Action to the Scrutiny and Overview Procedure Rules, a copy of which was attached to the report at Appendix C, and allocate the Council’s Scrutiny and Overview Committee as its Crime and Disorder Committee. The Council was currently adhering to statutory requirements for both of these issues, but the Committee supported the view that it would be prudent to ensure that they were adequately referred to in the Constitution.

Paragraph 2.2 of the Council Procedure Rules referred to the removal of a Member from a Committee or Sub-Committee. The Civic Affairs Committee, at its previous meeting, agreed upon sanctions for the removal of a Member, removal of a Member of Cabinet and removal of the Leader of the Council. The current wording of paragraph 2.2 did not reflect rules relating to political balance and the rights of political group leaders to appoint or remove Members of their respective groups to or from a Committee or Sub-Committee. In view of this, and the sanctions already in existence, the Civic Affairs Committee supported the deletion of this paragraph from the Constitution.

The remaining proposals in the report related to minor amendments that were suggested solely to ensure consistency throughout the Constitution.

In closing, the Committee noted that a new model constitution was being developed for all English local authorities and would be hosted for all Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (ACSeS) members on a web-based platform. Work was now well advanced on this project, with software designed to allow for the quick and easy production of a draft constitution from a bank of precedents, tailor-made for the differing models of council governance and incorporating the unique features of each local authority. A Welsh model was also being developed, following a specific request, aimed at making the constitution easier to use by cataloguing certain subjects rather than having them spread across different sections of the document. English authorities would be given the freedom to choose which of the two models they adopted. Officers agreed to produce draft constitutions for South Cambridgeshire District Council based on the new English and Welsh models, as soon as they became available. A number of working groups would be set up in due course to facilitate contributions from Members on the format and content of the two documents.