Issue - meetings

The Council is recommended to make the resolutions set out in the report at item 5.

At the invitation of the Mayor, Councillor Macleod moved the recommendations of the Standards and General Purposes Committee and spoke of the flexibility that would be provided to the Proper Officers of the Council to assess and decide which council meetings could be held during the pre-election period on a case-by-case basis; the proposal was duly seconded by Cllr Robini. There being no debate, the Mayor called upon Members to vote and it was

RESOLVED unanimously:

That the revised Pre-Election Publicity & Decision-Making Policy, as set out in Appendix 3 to the report, be adopted for inclusion in the Council’s Constitution, with immediate effect.

The Committee is recommended to make the resolutions set out in the report at item 9.

The Executive Head of Legal and Democratic Services addressed the Committee and made reference to the existing Pre-Election Publicity Policies adopted by both Guildford and Waverley Borough Councils. She noted that the guidance states that Councils should continue business as usual expect in politically sensitive cases. However, the current Policy prohibits Executive, Full Council and non-Regulatory Committees taking place in the pre-election period in part 8 of the Policy. The Executive Head of Legal and Democratic Services explained that the amendments detailed in appendix 2 would allow more flexibility to continue with business as usual where it is politically appropriate within the limits set out in Section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986 (‘the Act’) and the Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity published in 2011 (“the Code of Practice”).

The Executive Head of Legal and Democratic Services stated that as the pre-election policy currently stands, with all routine Council, Executive and non-regulatory Committees being suspended, there is a risk of raising practical problems around decision making i.e. The Joint Chief Executive’s Urgency Powers or an alternative may be utilised. It was also noted that different types of elections could determine how the statutory guidance is interpreted and more flexibility should be allowed in this regard. She explained that wording of the Policy has been amended to allow discretion for the Monitoring Officer to approve the schedule of meetings during the pre-election period and the appropriate business to be transacted.

Cllr Robini posed a question about cross boundary wards and whether correspondence will take place with neighbouring authorities to ensure politically sensitive business is not transacted which could impact the other authority or Waverley Borough Council. The Executive Head of Legal and Democratic Services confirmed that this would be the case and that the Council has good working relations with other neighbouring authorities.

The Committee were in favour of the amendments proposed in Appendix 2 and further raised the possibility of restricting motions during pre-election period which could be regarded as politically sensitive. Although ‘motions’ are mentioned in section 12, bullet point 3 of Appendix 2, Members suggested that, alongside restrictions on ‘business to be transacted’ in section 8 of Appendix 2, a restriction on motions should also be included, with the discretion of the Monitoring Officer and Chair to decide if the motion is appropriate or should be re-scheduled after the pre-election period. The Committee further suggested that extra wording should be included in section 8 of Appendix 2 to ensure that general Conduct is upheld within meetings during this period and that Members should not behave politically.

Further to the discussion, the Committee suggested that extra wording should be added to section 8 of the proposed amended Pre-election period publicity and decision-making Policy in Appendix 2, to include ‘Motions and General Conduct’, subject to the discretion of the Monitoring Officer and the Chair. The Committee agreed to delegate authority to the Executive Head of Legal and Democratic Services to finalise the wording and make the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9