PREVIOUS RESOLUTIONS

Question

Our SOs states in para 9 that motions made cannot be rescinded unless supported by a special motion as per para 7 supported by 10 Councillors .  We have 21 Councillor posts (not all filled) .  What is the usual/recommended percentage of Cllrs needed (left blank in NALCs draft) for such motions  and should there not be separate figures for each committee?

Answer 1

Bit difficult to comment without seeing your standing orders. How is the support of 10 ( or however many arrived at). Is the matter put on the agenda because 10 councillors have to apply for it or 10 councillors have to vote for it to be rescinded when it is voted on at a PC meeting where it is an agenda item. Mainly a motion can be revisited if sufficient evidence can be presented that the original decision no longer has relevance or that at the time of the decision facts or evidence which have relevance ware absent or was unknown and would require presentation. In such a case the answer to your question would be: a majority of councillors present at the meeting voting on the agenda item

Comments

Right the context is.  New clerk as part of her spreading of best practice decides that she needs to change numbers of criteria for committees.   All the Chairs and Deputy Chairs say no we are quite happy with our existing regime of minimum numbers.  A particular concern was that an influx of 6 new Cllrs was expected (co-option) and the proposed new max figures would severely limit new Cllrs options/choices.   Clerk ceases E mail correspondence and says "look I will put  it on the agenda lets have the debate there" .  Meetings arrives and only 7 of 21 Cllrs are present.   Item appears on agenda before the formal co-option item  so new Cllrs cant speak or vote.   Cllrs vote to accept max figures. Everybody in retrospect is up in arms and want discussion re-visited but that can only be done by special motion see para 7 of SOs .  Our reads “A resolution shall not be reversed within six months except either by a special motion, which requires written notice by at least ten councillors to be given to the Proper Officer in accordance with standing order 9.”  This is an exact copy of NALCs SOs with number ten inserted.

My question is OK we have cicra 20 Cllrs so 10 is about 50%   but we have some committees under new max criteria where you would need a 100% of all Cllrs support. So one SO does not fit all.
My question therefore relates to full Council ie what percentage is reasonable (and also should there be separate Committee specific numbers) ?  Most SOs I have seen are in single figures

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A member of the public looking at this would think it’s a fit up to prevent new Councillors going onto committees
Why wasn’t co option the first item on the Agenda ?
My understanding is that even with 10 Councillors supporting the motion you still
need to establish you were not fully informed or that the motion is in breach of the law
It’s to the Full Council to decide how many on each sub committee not the individual sub committee

Answer 2

The model standing order states:

7. Previous resolutions

a) A resolution shall not be reversed within six months except either by a special motion, which requires written notice by at least (   ) councillors to be given to the Proper Officer in accordance with standing order 9, or by a motion moved in pursuance of the recommendation of a committee or a sub-committee.

From my experience, 3 is the number most commonly used here, although others may have different views.

Worth noting that a committee or sub-committee may recommend a motion, which would require only a simple majority of those present at a quorate meeting of that committee.

Comments

One further SO question .  I am told if the text in NALCs model SOs is emboldened then it has to be legally included in all PC SOs.   That being said in Meetings generally para D if refers to the need for all PC meetings to be held in public with exclusion provisions .  Yet in Committees/Sub Committees it provides for the public to be completely excluded from sub committees.   So does the former have to be legally included but its provisions are not necessarily absolutely enforceable?

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Strictly speaking, the bold text indicates that the matter is a legislative requirement, but not necessarily that it must be included in your standing orders.

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Do you have the coloured dots in your standing orders? They differentiate between rules that are applicable only to certain types of meeting (full council, committee, sub-committee). Open to the public is full council and committee only. Discretion exists for sub-committees.

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NALC only provides guidance to PC's nothing more. The PC decides what their standing orders will be. Unfortunately too many councils just blindly copy the NALC produced version wholesale regardless of whether they are of relevance to the council they serve on. Whether this is due to lack of ability to decide for themselves or just indolence on their part is something that should be debated and agreed before adoption.