Issue - meetings

Purpose: The purpose of this report is to update Council regarding the work undertaken by the Constitution Review Task Group (“CRTG”), and to propose the approval of the proposed Constitutional updates detailed in this report.

Council considered a report (Agenda Item 12) concerning changes to Part 3, Meeting Procedure Rules, and Part 13, Code of Conduct, of the Council’s Constitution.

MOTION: Proposed by Councillor Jeff Brooks and seconded by Councillor Martin Colston:

“That:

A)    Part 13 Code of conduct Appendix A be deleted.

B)    Part 13 Code of conduct Appendix E be adopted as set out in Appendix 1 to this report.

C)   Part 13 Code of conduct Appendix G be deleted.

D)   Part 13 Code of conduct Appendix H be adopted as set out in Appendix 2 to this report.

E)    Council delegates to the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Chairman of the Constitution Review Task Group the power to update Parts 13 of the Constitution to ensure that this reflects the new rules, and to make any minor additional corrections to the parts of the Constitution to ensure consistency in terminology and presentation.

F)    The updated version of Part 3 - Meeting Procedure Rules be adopted.

G)   Council agrees that the changes to the Constitution detailed in this report, take effect from 1 April 2025.”

Councillor Brooks introduced the report and highlighted that the Council’s Constitution was under continual review and was a live document. The cross-party Constitution Review Task Group had proposed changes in order to make the Constitution easier to navigate and better reflect the current environment.

The key changes proposed were around the Code of Conduct and complaints process. In order to speed up and make more efficient the determination of Code of Conduct complaints against Members, it was proposed that the Advisory Panel stage be removed, and that complaints subject to external investigation would instead proceed straight to the Governance Committee.

Council noted another proposed change, about the inclusion of a Leaders Annual Report at the annual meeting of Council. This would provide the Leader of the Council ten minutes to outline the progress made over the past year as well as an opportunity for questions to be asked by Opposition Group Leaders.

Overall, Members agreed that the proposed amendments to the Constitution as proposed by the Constitution Review Task Group, and recommended for adoption by the Governance Committee, were appropriate. Therefore, it was agreed to approve the recommendations as presented in the report.

The Motion was put to the meeting and duly RESOLVED.