Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Head of Paid Service concerning a number of proposed changes to the council’s Constitution.

To consider the report of the Head of Paid Service concerning a number of proposed changes to the council’s Constitution.

The Committee considered the report of the Head of Paid Service concerning the proposed changes to the Council’s Constitution to reflect a change to the functions of full Council and reviews in relation to the Codes of Practice relating to Planning and Licensing.

The Managing Director explained that he chairs an officer Corporate Governance Group that consists of statutory and key officers of the Council.  One role of the Group is to review the Constitution and ensure relevant parts of the document had been updated.

The group had asked the Business Transformation Manager (Planning) and the City Centre Manager to review the Codes of Practice relating to Planning & Development and Licensing & Enforcement respectively to ensure the Codes were up to date and in line with best practice.  Both officers had presented their proposed amendments for the Committee to consider and recommend to Council for approval.

The Managing Director added that an addition to Council Functions had been proposed as shown on page 16 of the report.  Given the recent experience with Saintbridge Trust, it was felt beneficial for matters relating to the functions of the Council acting as a Trustee be explicitly referenced in the Constitution.

The Business Transformation Manager (Planning) outlined the main amendments in the revised version of the Planning and Development Code of Practice. She advised that the current Code had been in place since 2012 but did not reflect the current legislation. Amendments had been made to ensure continuity and the Introduction had been revised to clarify the status in relation to the Councillor Code of Conduct and the Employee Code of Conduct.

Reference to specific development plans had been removed and recent policies now included. The main change had been the inclusion of a Protocol for Planning Site Visits. This had been in place since 2017 and following a Local Government Peer Review, and it was appropriate to include this in the Code of Practice.

Councillor Coole raised concerns that it had been difficult to read the document due to the number of tracked changes that had been made. He asked why each reference made to ‘Member’ had been changed to ‘Councillor’.

The Business Transformation Manager (Planning) advised that this change had been made to ensure consistency throughout the Constitution.   She added that discussions had taken place to present Members with a schedule of amendments, however it had been agreed to present the document with tracked changes to allow Members to identify the amendments which had been made.

A number of members of the Committee agreed they found it difficult to fully assess the proposed changes with the amendments set out in the current format. Members requested a clean version of the new Code with the proposed amendments to be circulated, along with the existing version and a further meeting of the Committee be arranged.

The Business Transformation Manager (Planning) had prepared both versions and would circulate these to the Committee for their approval.

The Corporate Director advised the Committee that the report was due  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6