Issue - meetings

The Head of Legal Services introduced the report.

Councillor Pitt was concerned that the proposal removed the facility for consensus Motions and that the proposed changes to Rule 23 would give too much power to the ruling group on the Council.  Councillor Cantrill said that the proposal would not enable Motions to reflect the debate at Council and the pursuit of consensual Motions eg. the Motion on the Living Wage in 2014.  Regarding new rule 23.4, there could also be disagreement over what was a ‘substantive’ amendment and that this could put undue pressure on the Mayor.

Councillor Benstead stated the proposal formalised the current non-binding convention albeit bringing the deadline forward by a day, giving officers sufficient time to consider properly the implications of amendments to Motions and to advise councillors accordingly.

The Committee noted that if approved, the proposal would be recommended to the next but one meeting of Council ie. to the Annual Meeting of the Council on 28 May as described in paragraph 3.5 of the report.

Resolved to recommend (by 4 votes to 2) that the Council adopts the changes to its Constitution proposed in appendix 1 of the Head of Legal Services’ report.