Agenda item - Chair's Communication

12.1    The Chair gave the following communication:

I’d like to thank everyone for attending this urgent call-in meeting at such short notice. This was unfortunately the only possible slot for a meeting that fitted with constitutional requirements and the availability of key people.

I’d like to start off by briefly explaining the purpose of a call-in meeting. If anyone has any questions, I’m sure that Giles will be happy to respond.

Call-in is an essential, and legally required, part of any Leader & Cabinet governance model. The council has to have a process in place that allows non-executive members to challenge a decision of the executive, after it has been taken but before it has been implemented.

Call-in is not intended to be used frivolously or simply because members disagree with a decision. For a call-in request to be accepted, the members requesting the call-in must detail why they think the executive decision was flawed. The Council’s procedure rules list a number of legitimate grounds for call-in, as well as requiring that a call-in request be signed by at least 6 members from at least 2 political groups.

If a call-in request is made, and if the request is accepted by the Chief Executive, after consultation with the council’s Monitoring Officer, then a meeting of the relevant Overview & Scrutiny committee must be arranged within 7 days of the submission of the call-in request. We are here today because a call-in request has been submitted and accepted.

At the call-in meeting, the committee will hear from one of the members who submitted the call-in request – in this instance Cllr Sykes. As Ollie is also a member of this committee, he is able to present the call-in request and play his normal role in the meeting.

The committee will then hear from the relevant cabinet member, in this instance Cllr Taylor; and from officers if a detailed explanation of issues is necessary.

After this, committee members will have the opportunity to ask questions of the Cabinet Member to assist the Committee in reaching its decision on the call-in. The Cabinet Member may refer to officers to provide the response as they consider appropriate.

Having heard from the member requesting call-in and from the Cabinet Member and officers, and having had the opportunity to ask questions of the Cabinet Member and officers, committee members will then debate whether to accept or reject the call-in.

Members will note that one of the possible actions for the call-in committee is to refer the Cabinet decision to full Council. Just so we’re clear, an O&S committee can refer a decision that has been called in to Council, but only if the committee believes that the decision was contrary to the budget and policy framework previously agreed by Council. There is no role for Council in determining call-in requests other than in this context. As today’s call-in request does not suggest that the New England House decision was contrary to the budget and policy framework, I think it’s unlikely that we’ll want to refer to Council.

There are two other options. The committee can decide that the original executive decision was properly made, in which case the decision may be implemented immediately. Or it can decide that the original executive decision was not properly made and refer it back to Cabinet for re-consideration. If the committee chooses to refer the decision back to Cabinet, members must agree reasons for the referral.

It is very important for members to bear in mind that they are not being asked to debate the merits of the original executive decision. Rather, they are being asked to consider whether the Cabinet decision was properly made, given the concerns about process outlined in the call-in request. 

I appreciate that members will need some context in order to make the decision on whether to refer the decision back to Cabinet or not, but I do ask that we try to limit questions to the process of decision-making. I will stop questioners if they are veering too far from the brief of the committee.

Also, the call-in request is clear that the decision that members have concerns about is the decision to sell New England House. However, the asset strategy report considered by Cabinet also includes decisions around the disposal of the Hove Park site and some other sites. I don’t want to keep people here today for longer than necessary, so I want to be clear that the focus of today’s meeting is New England House.

I am also keen that we conduct as much of this meeting as possible in public session. When we come to questioning Cabinet members and officers, I would therefore strongly request that members think carefully and reserve any questions about confidential papers until there are no more questions that can be taken in public session. This is not to impede the democratic process, but rather to ensure that we do nothing that might compromise the completion of contractual negotiations.

If members do need to discuss confidential papers, this will need to be in Part 2 session. This means that the press and public will be excluded from this part of the meeting. Members have had the confidential report from the Cabinet meeting shared with them. A decision was taken by the Monitoring Officer that this report should be redacted to remove particularly sensitive information that was not considered relevant to the call-in. This is in accordance with the Council’s Constitution Part 3E Point 23.3 which states that confidential documents should not be shared with scrutiny members unless this information is relevant to their enquiry. The information redacted relates to the non-New England House elements of the asset strategy report which are not relevant to this meeting which is focused on New England House. No material relating to New England House has been redacted.

Finally, when the committee comes to decide whether or not to refer the Asset Strategy decision back to Cabinet, only voting members, that is Councillors, will vote. Non-voting members are otherwise welcome to play a full part in questioning and debating the issue.