Issue - meetings

Members gave consideration to the Annual Review of the Constitution 2022/23 for recommendation to Council in respect of proposed amendments to the Constitution.

The Annual Report from the Monitoring Officer aimed to provide a holistic view of all governance associated matters. The Report was broken down into 14 sections, with a few housekeeping amendments, and any aspect was open for discussion and consideration by the Committee.

The Council was required by law to prepare and keep up-to-date a Constitution which explained how the Council operated, how decisions were made and the procedures which were to be followed to ensure that these were efficient, transparent and accountable to local people.

Article 14 of the Constitution stipulated how such a review should be conducted namely:

a)    by observing meetings of different parts of the Member and Officer structure;

b)    by undertaking an audit trail of a sample of decisions;

c)    by recording and analysing issues raised with Monitoring Officer by Members, Officers, the public and other stakeholders;

d)    by comparing practices in this authority with those in comparable authorities, or national examples of best practice; and

e)    by undertaking a review of each committee’s effectiveness.

As comprehensive reviews of the Constitution were undertaken in 2011, 2014 and 2017, and a large number of amendments were made to large sections of the document in 2018, a number of relatively minor amendments were proposed as detailed at Section 3 of the report. Officers were to consider during 2023/24 as to whether a more comprehensive review of the Constitution was required in coming years, noting the date when such work was last undertaken.

The Constitution had continued to be tested during the 2022/23. The Monitoring Officer was pleased to report that it had provided a clear and robust framework for the governance and decision-making of this Council. This was especially important with the delivery and inception of some very ambitious projects.

As part of the last Annual Review considered by Council in May 2022, Members agreed a list of associated work to be undertaken during the 2022/23 civic year namely:

·       Parish Charter

·       Member Development

·       Members IT

·       Work on 4^th tier governance review

·       Adoption of New Code of Conduct by Parishes

·       Government Response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s review of Local Government Ethical Standards

·       Review of Council Procedure Rules

·       Working Groups Terms of Reference

·       Call-in Objection Form for Parish Council Use

Section 2 of the report provided a brief update of the work which had been undertaken over the period and any arising outcomes. Any proposed amendments arising from this work or feedback received through the year were contained in Section 3 of the report, with all amendments being brought together in a table of changes for implementation at paragraph 3.9. On this occasion some amendments proposed throughout the review were not being proposed for progression; these were detailed at Section 6 of the report together with the rationale.

Section 7 details associated work planned to be undertaken during the 2023/24 civic  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62