Issue - items at meetings - Review of Guidance when appointed to outside bodies

29.1             The Committee considered a report of the Monitoring Officer in relation to the review of the protocol for public questions. The Senior Solicitor, Liz Woodley, explained that the report pre-supposed the formal approval of the new governance arrangements at the Special Council meeting on 26 April 2012, and there was an opportunity to review the protocol which was currently the same for Council, committees and Cabinet Member meetings.

29.2             The Head of Law and Monitoring Officer, Abraham Ghebre-Ghiorghis, raised the issue of Officers of the Council being permitted to ask public questions, and noted that some local authorities restricted this to maintain a distinction in the relationships between Officers and Councillors. With recent budget savings proposals the number of public questions and petitions from Officers had increased, and other local authorities, who restricted questions, had stated there were existing channels in place for Officers to raise concerns such as through the grievance procedure of the Council.

29.3             The Chair stated that there were clear instances where an Officer should be considered a member of the public such asking questions to the Planning Committee in relation to applications which directly affected their street. Mr Cecil suggested that alternative routes could be used where they already existing, but there would be situations where Officers had legitimate concerns they wanted to raise as public questions. He went on to state that guidance could help Officers navigate these issues, and Councillor Littman also suggested that some of the guidance for politically restricted posts could be useful.

29.4             The Senior Solicitor went on to raise issues in relation to individuals asking questions on behalf of organisations – and disclosure of such association – and if the number of questions should be restricted. Members of the Committee noted that, whilst it would be preferential for those asking public questions for declare if it were on behalf of an organisation, there was no way to enforce this even if it were formalised in Council policy. It was also noted that there was no way of being fully certain an organisation had authorised an individual to ask a question on its behalf, and matters in relation to what constituted an ‘organisation’ were also raised.

29.5             The Committee discussed refusal of questions, and it was clarified that it was the normal practise to provide the existing responses to questions which were refused on the basis the same question had been asked in the past 6 months; it was not considered necessary to formalised this arrangement. Advice from the Head of Democratic Services had suggested that questions which referred to current legal proceeding being taken by or against the Council were largely already excluded as they fell within ‘disclosure of confidential or exempt information’; however, it was suggested that the revised policy might want to be clearer on this matter and could include exclude information starting from the point of receipt of a pre-application letter.

29.6             Consideration was also given to the notion of commercial and financial interests, and the Committee extended this to give consideration of personal interests, but it was felt that exclusion on these grounds would be in contrary to the principles of asking public questions as these would largely relate to person issues which directly effected residents.

29.7             RESOLVED – That the Committee note the content of the report and ask the Monitoring Officer to give consideration to comments made in the review of the protocol.