Agenda and minutes

Minutes of meeting held on 2^nd September 2010 (previously circulated). 

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 2 September 2010 were agreed as a correct record

There were no items of urgent business.

There were no declarations of interest.

Report of the Chief Executive. 

(The Democratic Services Manager declared a personal interest in the following item in view of her role managing the Democratic Support team which supports Members’ meetings.)

Members received a report from the Chief Executive, asking the Committee to consider the dates, venues and start times of meetings for 2011/12, so that a timetable could be approved for publication. Appended to the report were two versions of the timetable for Members’ consideration.

Members discussed their preference for the first version, attached at Appendix B to the report, which had been prepared following the same principles as the 2010/11 timetable. It was noted that the number of Cabinet, Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Budget and Performance Panel meetings had been cut in the second version (Appendix C to the report) and the Committee felt this would have a detrimental effect in several areas. Points raised included:-

• Fewer Council meetings would mean fewer opportunities for backbench participation in Council and public speaking.
• Holding the Cabinet to account would be more difficult with fewer scrutiny meetings.
• Fewer scrutiny meetings would probably mean longer scrutiny meetings and, with a 6pm start, these would finish very late in the evening.
• Cabinet meetings were already quite lengthy and having fewer meetings would be likely to increase the size of the agendas.

Members also felt that potential cost savings would be small if meetings were fewer because the remaining meetings were likely to be of longer duration. So the cost benefit did not seem to outweigh the disadvantages of losing meetings from the timetable.

The Committee also considered the future of Special Council meetings and it was felt that these should be timetabled for alternate years, the next meeting being in October 2012.

It was noted that the Council Business Committee’s terms of reference included the power to agree the annual timetable of meetings although, in practice, the Committee usually recommended a timetable to full council for approval. In view of the Committee’s delegated power and the fact that elections would be held before the timetable came into force, Members felt that a referral on to full council would not be appropriate this year.

Several minor amendments to the preferred timetable were debated and agreed upon.

(The final agreed versions of the list of venues and start times for meetings and the meetings timetable are appended to these minutes.)

Resolved:

(1)               That the start time of Council Business Committee meetings be moved from 5pm to 6pm.

(2)               That the JCC meeting timetabled for 8 June 2011 be moved to 14 June 2011.

(3)               That the Cabinet meeting timetable for 2 August 2011 be moved to 26 July 2011.

(4)               That the Special Council meeting timetabled for 12 October 2011 be removed and the next Special Council meeting be arranged for a date in October 2012.

(5)               That the Planning Site Visit timetabled for 24 April 2012 be moved to 23 April 2012.

(6)               That the Committee approves the timetable attached as Appendix B to the report, subject  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.