Agenda item

Purpose: To provide the Governance and Ethics Committee with an update on progress being made with the review of the Constitution.

Councillor Jeff Beck firstly offered his profound thanks to the Officers and Members involved with this review, in particular to Councillor Graham Bridgman as Chairman of the Group, in recognition of the intensity and hard work required to undertake such a review.

Sarah Clarke, Service Director, Strategy & Governance, provided the Committee with an update on progress being made with the Review of the Constitution (Agenda item 12).  In July 2019, the Governance and Ethics Committee had approved a review of the Constitution with an ambitious timeframe for the review to be completed by December 2020.  Sarah Clarke said that it had originally been intended to update parts of the Constitution in a piecemeal fashion and bring them forward as they were completed.  However, it became apparent that a more fundamental review of the Constitution was required, in part because the Constitution was comprised of 15 parts that had been reviewed on a rolling programme over many years which had resulted in various parts of the Constitution being duplicated as well as inconsistencies in the pattern of review.  The review of the Constitution had therefore been delayed by work undertaken to resolve those issues as well as being temporarily interrupted by the snap General Election in late 2019.  The work of the Group had also been paused for a period during the initial response phase to Covid-19, as Officers supporting the project were diverted to other matters.

The Task Group had, however, met on 11 occasions and a sample of work that had been completed and work that was planned was appended to the report.  Sarah Clarke said that in addition to providing an update to Committee, the group was also seeking an endorsement of the new-look Constitution. In addition, there were some changes that would benefit from an earlier review, such as the process for allowing questions at meetings. These would therefore be brought forward with a view to proposed changes being considered at the July meeting of Council.

Councillor Jeremy Cottam said he believed there were Motions from Council that had been put forward as suggestions for changes to the Constitution and asked if there was an intention to include those changes.  Sarah Clarke confirmed that those suggestions had been referred to the Task Group and the intention was that those matters that needed to be dealt with first would be picked up in the report to Council in July. 

Councillor Andy Moore, a member of the Task Group, was reticent about the conclusion that good progress had been made, but acknowledged the reasons for the delays which had occurred. Councillor Moore felt an opportunity had been missed to do some useful work around the Budget meeting this year and hoped this would be sorted for next year and reported on to Council in July.  Sarah Clarke advised that following the Budget meeting in March, it was proposed to timetable an additional Council meeting so that there would be a specific, single item meeting to deal with the Budget so that there would be more time in that meeting to enable Members to make comment.

Councillor Claire Rowles paid tribute to the Task Group and to Councillor Graham Bridgman for all their work on the review and asked when completion of the review was anticipated.  Sarah Clarke said it was difficult at this stage to give a target date for completion, citing part 13 of the Constitution alone as a challenge, but felt work would gain pace once the form of the Constitution had been resolved.  She clarified that any proposed changes to the Constitution would be put before the Governance and Ethics Committee first for approval before recommendation to full Council.

Councillor Tony Linden commented that the budget should be approved in one meeting, unless an emergency necessitated a further meeting and asked for clarification in relation to remote meetings.

Sarah Clarke said that in terms of the budget there was a definite deadline by which to approve the budget so that gave some constraint as to the length of those meetings.  As such, there had been some discussion and consideration about changes required at budget meetings to give more time to debate which was what was being sought.  In terms of remote meetings, a legal challenge was being heard in the High Court that week and although it was not known when a decision would be given, the Council’s plan was likely to be a hybrid return to doing things differently to comply with Covid guidance as well as local government legislation. 

Councillor Graham Bridgman thanked his fellow members of the Task Group and Officers for the work undertaken in the review. The intention was to pull together material spread across the Constitution into one place and take note of comments made about some processes, for example, the ability of the Council to guillotine a debate to prevent meetings from overrunning. Councillor Bridgman also proposed to add in a new form of close of debate as one criticism was that Members had moved to vote on certain items of the budget meeting which meant the seconder of the amendment that was voted upon did not get an opportunity to speak. The new form of close of debate meant that when Members moved to vote to close a debate it would allow the people who had not yet spoken, but had a right to speak under a normal debate, to be given the opportunity to do so.

Councillor Bridgman said there were sets of meeting rules in separate places which had all started out as saying the same thing but which had gradually changed meaning in different parts of Committees, Task Groups, Council and the Executive.  It was hoped that the final document would be easier to navigate around, and make sense by not having conflict between different parts of the Constitution. 

Parish Councillor Jane Langford queried whether it was realistic to aim for one Constitution document as in the American style where everything was written down and set in stone, given the UK’s Constitution was contained within a plethora of precedents created through the Courts which might in fact be a more effective, workable and useful approach.  Sarah Clarke said the production of one Constitution was required by law and hoped that the current tome would be reduced as a result of the removal of duplication.  She said that in terms of managing meetings it was really important to have the rules of engagement very clearly stated in one place so that business could progress and people could understand how business was transacted.  Councillor Graham Bridgman said this was less a Constitution, but more a set of rules to abide by when making decisions that could stand up in Court. 

Councillor Rick Jones said he was pleased with the direction the review was going in and praised the work of the Task Group.

RESOLVED that the work of the Constitution Review Task Group be noted and the Committee endorsed the contents of this update report and approved in principle the format of the updated Constitution.