Issue - meetings

To recommend adoption of the ordinary language guide and updated Constitution, following the work undertaken by the working group.

(a)       That the Committee recommends to Council that the draft amended

Constitution should be adopted subject to a further internal consistency

check and proof-read;

(b)       That the role descriptions in the draft Model Constitution should be the

subject to consultation with relevant Members before the Constitution is

adopted at the Annual General Meeting; and

(c)       That the ordinary language guide be adopted subject to a final document

and cross reference comparison with the draft Constitution to ensure

accuracy and consistency between those documents.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer presented a report to recommend adoption of the ordinary language guide and updated Constitution following the work undertaken by a working group of the Committee.  He provided background information and referred to the key points as detailed in the report.  The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that a first draft of both the constitution and the ordinary language guide were appended to the report. The changes that the working group proposed should be made to the Council’s constitution were shown as tracked changes but some further drafting work would need to be undertaken before the documents could be adopted by the Council.

Councillor Bernie Attridge drew attention to a number of corrections which he said needed to be made to update the draft Constitution with regard to other matters.  He  also sought information on where  reference  was made to CJCs in the Constitution.  The Deputy Monitoring Officer responded the points raised by  Councillor Attridge.  The Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer also provided background information regarding the question on CJCs and explained that those which were specific to the Council would be included in the Constitution in due course. 

Councillor Alasdair Ibbotson proposed the recommendation that the Committee gives feedback to Council on the proposed changes made and brings back to the working group to produce a further draft.   Councillor Ibbotson suggested that the following changes be made to the Constitution:

Page 24 - Members of the public – making comments/complaints

Why has engagement with the Overview and Scrutiny Committee been deleted?

Page 27 - Functions of the Full Council

4.6.15 – redundant

4.6.16 – redundant 

Page 28 - Functions of the Full Council

4.6.21 a), b) – prevents Overview and Scrutiny Committees doing this because of top

language

4.6.19 – as above regarding Overview and Scrutiny Committees

Page 46 - Electronic broadcast of meetings

21 – date is missing for how many days after a meeting copies will be available

Page 59 - The Cabinet - Leader

5.3 – The leader shall be one OF the Council’s representatives on: …

Page 60 - Job sharing by Cabinet members

5.5 – who is able to make individual Cabinet member decisions? Must these be made jointly, or by either member individually?

Page 64 - Cabinet meetings, when and where

5.9.6 – determination of choice?

Page 261 - Officer structure chart

Incomplete, no structure chart included

Page 277 - Responsibility for Council functions table

Highlighted part – appears to be a note when amending the document, should be removed?

Page 299 - Information sharing principles

B – “timely” ONLY applies in certain circumstances

Page 341 - Responsibility of Chief Officers

Powers to require senior officers to register interests and scrutinise those interests?

Page 582 - Trade Union Representation, concerns regarding behaviour

4.14 – delete ‘recognised’ prior to Trade Union

Page 602 - Elected members role description

1.2 a) ii) and iv) – delete

Page 603 - Elected members, values

1.3 – delete

Page 606 - Leader, values

2.3 –  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23