Meeting documents

To consider Report of the Monitoring Officer

The Committee considered a report by the Council’s Monitoring Officer, Scott Wooldridge which provided background and an update on the work on the Constitution for the new Somerset Council.

The Monitoring Officer highlighted the principles and approach to developing the proposed new Constitution and council decision making – accountability, transparency, efficiency and proportionality. Previous meetings of the Committee had reviewed key principles for Part C, Licensing and Regulatory arrangements, Pensions Committee and Pensions Board arrangements. This meeting would consider and review the following:

·         Part C - Council functions, procedure rules and Budget and Policy Framework – and attached as Appendix 1 to this report

·         Local Community Networks – draft terms of reference

·         Part D - Committee procedure rules – and attached as Appendix 2 to this

·         report

·         Part D - Planning Committee terms of reference

·         Part G - Scrutiny arrangements

·         Part I – Officer Scheme of Delegation and List of Statutory & Proper Officers

The final draft Constitution, comprising all Parts and Appendices, would be considered at the Committee’s meeting on 14 February 2023. The Committee would then recommend the new Constitution to the Council meeting on 22 February 2023 for approval and adoption. The Constitution would be subject to review over the course of the first year of operation.

During the debate the following points were highlighted: -

·         In response to a question, the Monitoring Officer said he would create a page on the internal members SharePoint site to view the draft Constitution. The overall draft Constitution for the new Somerset Council would be considered at the next meeting of the Committee

·         Appendix 1, section 1.1 – for clarity would add an additional bullet point to the list – to receive regular reports from the Leader and the Executive and the Scrutiny Committees regarding their work, also including an Annual Report from each Committee

·         Appendix 1, section 3.2 third bullet and process for electing the Chairs and Vice Chairs of the Committees – for clarity would add an additional bullet point – appoint the Chair and Vice Chairs of main Committees

·         Appendix 1, section 3.4 - clarification on what ‘exceptional and unforeseen circumstances’ meant – would add the following to the sentence - ‘……Chair of Council in consultation with the Monitoring Officer’

·         Appendix 1, section 3.46 – would reword this to read ‘the Leader of the Council or the Leader of the largest opposition political group can speak for up to 15 minutes or such longer period as the Chair shall allow’

·         Appendix 1, section 3.44 and why limit is set at 2 minutes rather than 3 minutes for the ‘right to reply’– there was no consensus to change this, especially as the Chair had discretion to allow a longer period of time

·         Appendix 2, committee structure schematic – clarified these were in draft and the final draft version would come to the next meeting – at that point the Committee would be asked to recommend the draft Constitution to the Council meeting in February 2023.

·         Appendix 2, Executive arrangements diagram and the Leader appointments to the Executive sub committees – explained that legally the appointments were a function of the Executive, and for the Leader to determine (under a strong Leader / Executive model). The draft Terms of Reference for those sub committees would also come to the next meeting, on 14 February 2023.

The Committee:

(1) Noted the update on the development of the new Constitution.

(2) Considered and commented upon the draft Articles, set out in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2.