Meeting documents

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from M C Appleyard, A D Collingwood, R Gaffney, D Knights and B Pearce.

To receive any disclosure of disclosable pecuniary interests by Members relating to items on the agenda.  If any Member is uncertain as to whether an interest should be disclosed, he or she is asked if possible to contact the District Solicitor prior to the meeting.

Members are reminded that if they are declaring an interest, they should state the nature of that interest whether or not they are required to withdraw from the meeting. 

No declarations of interest were received.

A report was submitted which requested approval for the proposed amendments from the Leader of the Council to a number of Standing Orders within the Constitution. These related to an alteration in the deadlines for Public and Members` questions, a change to the order for taking Members` questions and an amendment to the rule concerning when a question could be rejected within a six month period. The report also sought to incorporate within the Standing Orders, additional clarification with regards to the Council`s Petition Scheme.

The amendments were set out in paragraphs 11, 14, 16, 18 and 20 of the report, which if endorsed by Full Council, would be incorporated within the Council`s Standing Orders within the Constitution. 

The report stated that the current deadline for public and Member questions to be submitted to Full Council was 3 clear days before the meeting was due to take place. At the present time Standing Orders stated that questions were to be received no later than 12 noon on the Thursday prior to the Monday meeting. The proposal was now to extend the deadline for submission to 5 clear days before the meeting.

The report also proposed an amendment in relation to the order of Members` questions, which currently allowed for one initial leader`s questions from each of the political parties, and the rest to be taken in the order in which they were received. It was proposed that the questions continue to be taken first from the Group Leaders but that the first question from other Councillors be asked before any subsequent questions from the same Councillor was taken. As such no Member would be allowed to ask consecutive questions.

A change was also sought with regards to the current provision of rejecting questions which were substantially the same as a question which had been put to a Council meeting during the past six months. It was now proposed that this be rejected if it was on the same topic as that which had been brought during the past six months.

The report proposed a further amendment in relation to the wording of the Petitions Scheme. Standing Order 9.6 (2) currently stated that the names, addresses and signatures of at least 10 people supporting the petition should be included within a petition. The proposal before Members was to consider whether it should become a requirement for those 10 people to reside, work or study within the District in order for them to be eligible for their names to be included within the petition.   

Members considered the report before them in  detail.  Regarding the deadline for questions, a some Members indicated that the current 3 day deadline was adequate, and saw no valid reason for altering the deadline to 5 days prior to the meeting for submission of questions. It was felt that Cabinet Members for their relevant area of responsibility should comfortably be able to answer the given question without the need for any additional time. Other Members disagreed with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.