Agenda item

To receive members’ questions under procedure rule no.11.  The procedure rule provides that any member may ask the chairman of a board or group any question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the District, provided that three clear days’ notice in writing has been given to the Head of Legal and Support Services.

Councillor D Everitt put the following question to Councillor R Blunt:

“Since last year’s Cabinet meeting held on February 19^th 2016 there have been 11 Cabinet meetings.  At these meetings decisions are announced by the six Cabinet members. No meaningful debate takes place. 

During the same period of time there have only been 7 full Council meetings in which Councillors of all parties have the right to question and discuss councillor business on behalf of the electorate.

Does the Leader recognise the importance of constructive criticism or support when making decisions, and is he aware of how lack of meetings is perceived by interested observers, and how does this serve democracy?”

Councillor R Blunt gave the following response:

“The Local Government Act 1972 gives the Council discretion as to how many Council meetings it holds in any year. The number of Cabinet meetings is entirely at my discretion. In the interests of effective  administration  the dates of the Cabinet and Council meetings are set in advance to ensure that they are timed to fit in with the regular business of the Council e.g. the performance monitoring, the budget etc.  Other reports for decision are then added to these dates thus ensuring that meetings are not being held for meetings’ sake as I appreciate how busy members are and I know they would not thank me for arranging additional Cabinet meetings to discuss individual matters. Hence why we have an Executive Decision Notice which gives elected members and the public advance notice of all forthcoming reports for decision. These have been carefully timed to fit into the meetings timetable, thus ensuring effective and timely decision making. The Executive Decision Notice is included in the agenda papers for every meeting of the Policy Development Group and allows members to see the decisions which are planned over the forthcoming months. Members also have the ability to call in decisions made by Cabinet where they have evidence which suggests that the Cabinet did not take the decision in accordance with the decision making principles laid down in the Constitution. 

In terms of serving democracy, each Council meeting has provision to enable debate and every Cabinet and Council meeting provides for questions by members and the public. Advance notice is given of the deadlines for submitting motions and questions.  I do not see how spreading the business of the Council over more meetings, diluting the content of each meeting and calling on the services of elected members and officers more frequently would make the decision making process more efficient. I am therefore satisfied that in North West Leicestershire we serve democracy well and the number of Council and Cabinet meetings held each year is appropriate to the needs of the business of the Council.”

Councillor D Everitt stated that he was not happy with the answer to his question and felt it was not a good situation when scrutiny was limited.  He sought to make a speech.

The Chairman reminded Councillor D Everitt to confine his comments to a supplementary question only. 

As a supplementary question, Councillor D Everitt asked if the Leader believed that democracy had to be seen to be done, and if he realised that scrutiny was as much in the interests of the ruling party as the opposition. 

The Leader responded that the present Leader and Cabinet model had been introduced by the Labour administration and had been retained.  He stated that he believed the system in place was good and fair.  He added that reasonable requests for members to speak and ask questions at Cabinet were accepted.  He commented that good scrutiny was the responsibility of those members on the scrutiny committee and he felt that scrutiny was in a good place under the current Chairman.  He emphasised his strong belief in democracy.