Issue - meetings

That the Committee be assured that ethical arrangements have been maintained during the response phase of the emergency.

The Monitoring Officer introduced the report and explained that until this year, local authority meetings operated under legislation that required the majority of Members to be physically present.  As well as being unsafe, the coronavirus restrictions on movement and assembly effectively made such meetings impossible.

            On 17^th March 2020 the Council was forced to cancel all of its Council, Cabinet and Committee meetings for the remainder of the month, and then again for the whole of April.  Town and Community Councils likewise cancelled their Member meetings.

            Member meetings were gradually restored from May as new models of governance were put in place and later legislation was passed that enabled meetings to be held without any physical attendance.  Meetings were now taking place via video conference and a full calendar of meetings had been restored from September.

            The requirement on Councillors to observe the Code of Conduct and, in particular, to declare interests, had been operated continuously throughout the temporary governance arrangements.

            Information was provided on the arrangements that had been put in place, such as Individual Cabinet Member decisions and the process undertaken to determine urgent planning applications.

            Weekly telephone briefings also took place with Group Leaders on key issues which they were able to comment on.

            Mr Robert Dewey thanked all staff for the work involved in the temporary change to procedures.

            Councillor Johnson referred to the exercise undertaken the previous year whereby independent members of the Standards Committee undertook visits to Town and Community Councils and reported back on those visits.  He said they were all working in different ways during this time so he felt it would be useful if that exercise could be undertaken again via virtual means.  The Monitoring Officer said that could be looked into and added that as the rules of allowing members of the public to attend council meetings were being relaxed, this could also provide the opportunity for the independent members to attend Flintshire meetings if they so wished. 

RESOLVED:

That the Committee be assured that ethical arrangements have been maintained during the response phase of the emergency.