Agenda item

Referral from the Budget and Performance Panel.

The Democratic Services Manager introduced a referral report from the Budget and Performance Panel asking the committee to consider the procedure for dealing with urgent business, call-in, and the waiver of call-in.

Councillor Mace proposed that “We ask that the city constitution no longer provides power for the Chief Executive to override any decision of the Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee not to agree to the waiver of call-in, and that call-in may only be waived where the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee are in agreement that call-in be waived.”

In the course of discussion, members questioned what would happen if either the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee was unavailable, and it was noted that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, in that order, could be consulted.   ‘Unavailable’ in this context would be defined as unable to be contacted within six hours.

In addition, it was agreed to precede Councillor Mace’s suggestion with the words: “On the basis that officers advise and members decide…”.

The Committee agreed that the proposal should be referred to Council for consideration with the comments of the Monitoring Officer included in the report. 

Councillor Mace then set out two proposals for amending the current call-in arrangements. 

The first was a request for “a report on options for the amendments to the call-in process so that an additional (less technical and confrontational) reason for rethinking a cabinet decision could be created, such as one loosely based on the old procedure (standing order 23 under the former committee system) for ‘reference up of decisions’ to Council.” (old standing order 23 was circulated at the meeting and is appended to these minutes.)

The second stated that “the simplest way of achieving the opportunity for a wider debate on an issue, potentially leading to a recommendation from Council to Cabinet, (similar to one of the options under the current call-in rules) (if it is legally acceptable as a permitted element in the City’s Constitution) would be for implementation of a Cabinet decision to be suspended pending the outcome of an extraordinary council meeting summoned under procedure rule 3.1 to debate a motion put forward within the normal call-in period – but under conditions of support similar to rule 19.1. This would be additional to the present rules.”

Information relating to the two proposals was circulated and it was noted that procedure rule 3.1 required five Members of Council to request that the Mayor hold an extraordinary meeting of Council and procedure rule 19.1 required at last 15 Members (being a quorum of Council) to move a motion to rescind a decision made at a meeting of Council within the last six months.

Members agreed that both proposals would require a report back to the Committee from the Monitoring Officer to assess their feasibility.

Resolved:

(1)                 That officers refer the following proposal regarding the waiver of call in to Council for consideration:

“On the basis that officers advise and members decide, we ask that the city constitution no longer provides power for the Chief Executive to override any decision of the Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee not to agree to the waiver of call-in, and that call-in may only be waived where the Chairman and Vice- Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee are in agreement that call-in be waived. Should the Chairman or Vice Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny be unavailable, the Mayor should be approached for his/her agreement. Should the Mayor be unavailable, the Deputy Mayor should be approached for his/her agreement. “Unavailable” in this context is defined as unable to be contacted within 6 hours. ”

(2)     That the Monitoring Officer be asked to prepare a report for the next meeting of the Committee in respect of the feasibility and legalities of the two proposals put forward by Councillor Mace regarding the present call-in system and the introduction of new rules in addition to the present call-in system.