Agenda item

CONSTITUTIONAL UPDATES

 

(i)       Re-Endorsement of Appointment of Independent Chair of Standards Committee and Independent Person and Appointment of Additional Independent Person

 

The purpose of this report is to seek Council’s endorsement of the continued appointment of Joe Jackson, the Independent Chair of the Standards Committee and Karen Milner, the Council’s Independent Person under the relevant provisions of the Localism Act 2011 and to request that Council delegates to the Standards Committee the process of the appointment of two further Independent Persons.

 

 

ConstitutionalUpdates 

 

(i)Re-Endorsement of Appointment of Independent Chair of Standards Committee and Independent Person and Appointment of Additional Independent Person 

 

The report sought Council’s endorsement of the continued appointment of Joe Jackson, the Independent Chair of the Standards Committee and Karen Milner, the Council’s Independent Person under the relevant provisions of the Localism Act 2011 and requested that Council delegated to the Standards Committee the process of the appointment of two further Independent Persons. 

 

Councillor Dickinson advised that he could not support recommendations (b) and (c) as he already advised the MO that he wished to see the recruitment process for the independent persons and he could not support the delegation to the MO without sight of it. The MO advised that with regard to (b), the report detailed what the recruitment process would be, which was the same as used previously. Recommendation (c) was a belt and braces delegation to pick up any inconsistencies in the Constitution.

 

Councillor Dickinson replied that he had not seen the process which had been used previously and this was valuable information in agreeing and progressing the recommendations in the report. The MO agreed that she would identify the adverts, process etc and circulate them to members.

 

Councillor Hill commented that she had advocated two years ago that additional independent persons should be recruited and agreed that seeing details of the recruitment process would be useful. She sought clarification that delegation was being sought to manage the recruitment process, with approval of the independent persons being done by Council, and asked why two additional independent persons were being sought. The MO confirmed this was correct, and advised that for an authority of this size, 3-4 independent persons was appropriate. 

 

RESOLVED that:-

 

(a)      Council endorse the continued appointment of the following for the remaining terms of their four year appointment; 

 

                         i.         Independent Chair - Mr Joe Jackson  

 

                       ii.          Independent Person - Ms Karen Milner; and  

 

(b)      Council delegate to the Standards Committee, in conjunction with the Monitoring Officer, the process of the appointment of two further Independent Persons; and

 

(c)      should any consequential constitutional amendment be required, this be delegated to the Monitoring Officer in consultation with the Constitution Working Group.

 

(ii)      Political Proportionality

 

          A report had been circulated to members (copy attached to the sealed minutes). The purpose of the report was to determine the political proportionality of the registered political groups of the Council and to allocate seats on committees in accordance with that proportionality in accordance with the provisions of Sections 15 and 16 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Following the result of the Hexham East Electoral Division by election and the change in the numbers of the political groups, the allocation of seats to be filled by the different political groups has been reviewed in accordance with the requirements of the Act.

 

Councillor Wearmouth highlighted some of the key points of the report.

 

Councillor Reid sought clarification that Standards Committee was in fact 9 members, which was confirmed.

 

Councillor Bridgett could not support the report as this was the fourth version of it he had received. He had gone through the figures in detail on a previous version and in his view, the proportionality did not add up. The report issued the previous Friday gave the LD group a 3.73% increase in places giving them 14 committee places. This was now 0.36% and 10 places. There were also discrepancies in the report on the % for the Green Party. He had no confidence in the figures in the report. The MO advised that the report which Councillor Flux had circulated on Friday had been updated with the following amendments, and which had been circulated to members today:-

 

Recommendation 5 – “nominations” instead of “wishes” of the Group Leaders

Recommendations 6 and 7 in the earlier version had been removed after consultation with Group Leaders.

Petitions Committee, Staff and Appointments Committee and Standards Committee should be 9 members.

 

Councillor Bridgett replied that the % were also different, as he had detailed earlier. He had only been able to check the figures from the report circulated on Friday and not the report circulated today. He could therefore not support the report. The MO replied that the report circulated on Friday had included the committee places for the Grievance Committee referred to elsewhere on the agenda, but not yet approved.

 

Councillor Hill commented that the process in dealing with this report had been shambolic. She felt attempts were being made to confuse members and sought clarification of what the split would be on a committee of 9. Councillor Wearmouth referred Councillor Hill to Appendix 1 and confirmed this would be Con:4, Lab:3, Ind Gp:1, LD:1. The Business Chair pointed out that the Administration did not plan on changing the numbers of some Committees for political advantage, as had been suggested.

 

Councillor Kennedy referred to the figures for a committee of 4, and then a committee of 5 and the respective splits. He did not understand how the Independent Group did not feature in a committee of 5 and how the Group could lose a seat if the Committee grew in number. The Business Chair advised that it was the difference between .46 and .45 which gave the Conservative Group the place.  Councillor Kennedy proposed an amendment that the Employment Appeals Committee should be increased to 6 members. This was seconded by Councillor Hill. He clarified that this related to recommendation 4 and Appendix 2. This would make it 3 Con, 2 Lab and 1 Ind Gp making it more politically balanced.  The MO suggested that Council deal with the recommendations in the order they were set out in the report, and when it came to recommendation 4, decide at that point on Councillor Kennedy’s amendment.

 

Councillor Hill asked whether Democratic Services and other officers agreed with the calculations. The MO advised that if members were not happy with some of the figures then they should take some time to consider them.

 

The Business Chair suggested that the meeting be adjourned and reconvened in 14 days’ time. Councillor Daley asked whether this meant the whole meeting was now terminated and the Business Chair confirmed that was the case. Councillor Daley responded that he had been a councillor for many years but have never experienced such a shambolic meeting.

 

Councillor Dunn expressed her concern that she had indicated to speak some time ago, but had never been given the chance to do so because of the lack of order in the meeting. She agreed the meeting had been shambolic and would not be forced into a vote on something that made no sense.

 

Councillor Dale commented that if the meeting was to be adjourned, then valid reasons needed to be provided because there were other important matters on the agenda.

 

Councillor Wearmouth proposed that the meeting be adjourned, which was seconded by Councillor Seymour. The Business Chair advised members that it had been suggested they needed more time to read the reports and he was coming up to the three hour limit. The motion was moved without debate under procedural rules.

 

On the required number of members calling for a named vote on this motion, the votes were cast as follows:-

 

FOR: 21

 

Bawn, D.	Ploszaj, W.
Beynon, J.	Renner Thompson, G.
Castle, G.	Riddle, J.R.
Cessford, T.	Sanderson, H.G.H.
Flux, B.	Scott, P.
Hardy, C.	Seymour, C.
Hutchinson, J.I.	Stewart, G.
Jackson, P.A.	Thorne, T.N.
Jones, V.	Towns, D.
Oliver, N.	Wearmouth, R.
Pattison, W.

 

AGAINST: 38

 

Ball, C.	Hunter, E.I.
Bowman, L.	Kennedy, D.
Bridgett, S.C.	Lang, J.
Carr, D.	Mather, M.
Cartie, E.	Morphet, N.
Clark, T.	Murphy, M.
Dale, P.A.M.	Nisbet, K.
Daley, W.	Parry, K.
Darwin, L.	Purvis, M.
Dickinson, S.	Reid, J.
Dunbar, C.	Richardson, M.
Dunn, L.	Scott, A.
Ezhilchelvan, P.	Sharp, A.
Fairless-Aitken, S.	Simpson, E.
Foster, J.	Swinbank, M.
Gallacher, B.	Taylor, C.
Grimshaw, L.	Waddell, H.
Hill, G.	Watson, A.
Humphrey, C.	Wilczek, R.

 

ABSTENTIONS:0

 

The motion was therefore defeated.

 

The MO advised members that they had taken the motion without debate and asked for a recorded vote. Members had now reached the three hours allowed in the Constitution for the meeting. Councillor Reid moved that standing orders be suspended to allow the meeting to continue, which members supported.

 

Councillor Dunn asked what had happened with agenda item 12 (ii) and whether the Political Proportionality report had now been withdrawn, leaving the rest of the agenda to deal with. Councillor Wearmouth responded that the motion to adjourn had been defeated and members should therefore continue with the debate on the Political Proportionality report, and deal with the rest of the agenda subsequently. Councillor Dunn felt that in that case, it would be sensible to defer this report and continue with the rest of the agenda. Councillor Wearmouth responded that the by election had changed the proportionality of the Council and the decision on committee places needed to come a conclusion now.

 

Councillor Dunn did not feel that was possible because of the amount of differing information being circulated and would not be bullied into a decision on it.

 

Councillor Dickinson commented that the table in the appendix did not add up and contained multiple errors, the vote of no confidence in the adjournment was a bad start, there had been many opportunities to present the report properly and in a timely fashion and he had already raised issues and concerns. He felt this matter needed to be voted down and a new proposal with an accurate report which members had confidence in, circulated properly for consideration either by another Council meeting or via delegation to Group Leaders. This was seconded by Councillor Bridgett.

 

Councillor Wearmouth responded that if members had agreed the adjournment, then Council could have come back in two weeks having had further time to consider the report. However, if the matter was deferred, the next Council meeting was the budget meeting of 23 February. Councillor Dickinson clarified that this report needed to be rejected by members because the figures did not add up in any respect. This report needed to be dealt with, and a fresh report brought to members, through Group Leaders if necessary. This report could not be agreed tonight as it was not the job of members to check the calculations contained in it, for example, Petitions Committee was listed as 8 members but the individual group figures only added up to 7.

 

The MO sought clarification whether Councillor Dickinson wanted to defer the item to a future date or that the report should be stood down and a fresh report brought. This would need to be done quickly because committees needed to meet. Councillor Wearmouth added that the alternative would be to bring a report to Council in February as there wasn’t a mechanism to allow a delegation on this to Group Leaders.

 

Councillor Dickinson stressed that he was not suggesting a deferment for the existing report to be tweaked. No member had confidence in this report. It had to be rejected and a new report written by Democratic Services.

 

Councillor Wearmouth said he did have confidence in the report. The option was there for the report to be withdrawn and the matter considered again in February but this would disenfranchise the Lib Dem Group and the Ind Group to a lesser extent as the committees would stay as they were now. 

 

The Leader moved that the report be withdrawn. There was some discussion as to whether this would be for two weeks, or until the February meeting of Council. The Leader advised that he would meet with the Group Leaders in the next seven days to discuss the timeliness of bringing a revised report back, which would either be in two weeks or at the February budget meeting.

 

Councillor Reid expressed concern at this proposal.

 

The Leader commented that it was clear agreement was not going to be reached and he felt it was important to do so. He suggested that the committees stay as they were for now, and a meeting of the Group Leaders take place very soon to decide when Council would meet to take this decision. He accepted this was not ideal but urged members to support it so matters could be moved on.

 

The MO reiterated to members that the report was lawful and correct and that the existing committee proportionalities would remain the same until members agreed differently.  

 

RESOLVED that the report be withdrawn and a new report on Political Proportionality be brought to Council, on a date to be decided, following discussion by the Group Leaders as detailed above.