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Issue - meetings
Changes to Council Constitution
Meeting: 07/12/2020 - Cabinet (Item 292)
292 Changes to Council Constitution PDF 254 KB
(Christine Barkshire-Jones, Chief Legal Officer)
(Council decision)
Additional documents:
- Appendix 1 Part 4 Constitution - Rules of Procedure (November 2020), item 292 PDF 472 KB
- Appendix 1 Part 5 Constitution - Codes and Protocols (Dec 2020), item 292 PDF 146 KB
- Appendix 2 Participants Guidance Final., item 292 PDF 204 KB
- Participants Guidance Constitution, item 292 PDF 204 KB
Decision:
1. Cabinet recommend to full council that the constitutional amendments are approved.
2. Cabinet recommend to full council that the ‘Participants Guidance to Virtual Meetings’ is included in the council’s constitution as Appendix 3 at Part 4 and is published on the Council’s website.
Minutes:
The Chief Legal Officer presented a report to amend the Constitution and introduce the Participants Guidance for virtual meetings.
During the Covid-19 pandemic it has been necessary to adapt council procedures to produce ‘virtual’ meetings to comply with government guidance and regulations.
In order to do so officers from Legal, IT and Democratic Services worked on procedures and guidance to assist participants. This highlighted the need to have some of the constitutional rules tweaked to provide a better framework in order to facilitate virtual committee meetings.
The constitutional amendments and amendments to the participants guidance to ‘Virtual’ meetings have both been considered by the Working Arrangement Group (WAG). WAG agreed all proposed amendments to Part 4 of the council’s constitution and requested an amendment be made to Part 5 of the council’s constitution to require a councillor to disconnect from a virtual meeting where they have a prejudicial interest and where they would otherwise leave the room.
The Chief Legal Officer said that Recommendation 2 needs to be amended as WAG have already agreed that the Participants Guidance can be published on the website.
Councillor Barnett asked if there was any way to make it clearer for the public to follow the agenda for virtual meetings. The Chief Legal Officer agreed that the Mayor’s transcript could be amended to make it easier for viewers to follow the meeting and will discuss this with colleagues.
Councillor Rogers proposed approval of the recommendations, subject to the amendment to recommendation 2, seconded by Councillor O’Callaghan.
RESOLVED (unanimously):
1. Cabinet recommend to full council that the constitutional amendments are approved.
2. Cabinet recommend to full council that the ‘Participants Guidance to Virtual Meetings’ is included in the council’s constitution as Appendix 3 at Part 4
.Reasons:
1. The Council must make provision for the procedures of the council’s constitution to work for ‘Virtual’ meetings during the current Covid 19 pandemic.
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