Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Governance attached for noting.

The committee received a report of the Director of Governance and Monitoring Officer which outlined a number of urgent decisions taken since 21 July 2021 in accordance with urgency procedures outlined in the Council’s Constitution.

The report highlighted that 7 urgent decisions had been submitted during this period, which required agreement from either the Mayor or the Chair of Scrutiny Committee to be taken using urgency procedures.

Members expressed some concern over the number of urgent decisions taken, given that these were not subject to call-in and therefore ineligible to be considered by the Scrutiny Committee.

Assurances were provided to the committee that a legitimate process had been followed in the approval of these decisions.

Resolved: (Unanimously)

That the Scrutiny Committee

1.    notes the report;

2.    expresses concern at the use of waiving call-in; and

3.    asks that the Executive use this procedure sparingly in future.

To receive and consider the report of the Director of Governance and Monitoring Officer.

Noted.

Members received a report setting out a number of urgent decisions taken in accordance with urgency procedures outlined in the Council’s Constitution since the report to the last meeting of Council.

These urgent decisions include ‘key’ decisions taken by the Executive (i.e. Cabinet of Individual Executive Members) as defined in the Cabinet Forward Plan / Notice of Executive Decisions, decisions which include confidential or exempt information, and urgent decisions for which the Mayor agreed to waive scrutiny call-in. For clarification, these do not relate to urgent decisions arising from the COVID pandemic.

The report also includes urgent decisions taken by the Chief Executive in consultation with the Leader of the Council in accordance with Section 35 of Part 4A of the Council’s Procedure Rules. This may include decisions to relating to the COVID pandemic such as the need to urgently release funding allocated for this purpose.

It was proposed by the Leader of the Council, Councillor Paul Foster, seconded by the Deputy Leader of the Council, Councillor Mick Titherington, and subsequently

Resolved that the report be noted.