Agenda item

Report of the Head of Legal and Support Services

The Deputy Monitoring Officer presented the report to Members, drawing their attention to the recommendation to postpone the annual review of the Constitution due to the pending legislation that would have an impact once enacted. 

Councillor S Sheahan asked how long this process would take and whether officers had confidence that this could be completed within the next 6 months.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer stated that he had every confidence that it could be completed within this timescale, as the Statutory Instrument had been published, as had a guidance note, and he was confident that a report could be brought to the next meeting.

Councillor S Sheahan asked if there were any additional forthcoming matters that could have an impact upon the Constitution.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer responded that delegated authority had been granted to the Monitoring Officer to make any minor consequential changes to the Constitution.  He added that all legislative matters which officers were currently aware of were outlined in the report.

Councillor S Sheahan referred to the proposal in respect of the recording of meetings.  He commented that it would embrace the spirit of the legislation if the Council webcast its meeting in the same manner as Leicestershire County Council.  He added that this would save people the bother.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that this would be a question of costs and practicality, which would need to be investigated.

Councillor S Sheahan requested a breakdown of the costs to enable this to be considered.

Councillor J Geary commented that he had no problem with the report and asked what impact there would be on staffing levels, and how much staff time this would take to implement.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer advised that he could see no major impact upon staffing levels in respect of making the requisite amendments to the Constitution, however there could be an impact in terms of the management of meetings.  He added that this would be unknown until it was clear what was required and this could be reported back to a future meeting.

Councillor A C Saffell commented that he had no problem with the recommendation, however he felt that at 600 pages the Constitution was too long and repeated itself in places.  He stated that he did not want to impose any additional burden to implement the required changes, but felt that it ought to be possible to remove parts of the Constitution so that it didn’t eventually reach 1,000 pages.  He added that in the commercial world you would never see a document anywhere near that long and felt that the shorter it was, the better.

The Deputy Monitoring Officer accepted the comments.  He advised that the Constitution was based on the Model Constitution, and was one of the shortest in the county at around 300 pages.  He stated that as part of the review he would endeavour to shorten the document, however the Council was bound by legislation insofar as what should be included.

It was moved by Councillor J Geary, seconded by Councillor S Sheahan and

RESOLVED THAT:

On the advice of the Monitoring Officer, the annual review of the Constitution be postponed pending enactment of legislation likely to affect the review.