Minutes:
The Member Services Manager sought approval for the Panel’s proposals for monitoring Members’ performance to be deferred to the Committee’s next Meeting on 3rd April, 2006. Deferral of this matter was being sought to allow the schedule setting out Members’ roles and responsibilities to be amended to take into account past changes in the Council’s democratic structure and, where applicable, make them less prescriptive to allow changes in practice over time to be accommodated.
The Committee was informed that to date no formal response had been received from Members to the Panel’s proposals and deferral of this matter would also allow any late comments or observations to be submitted and considered.
The Committee was advised that the Deputy Leader of the Council had informally expressed some concern about how robust the current requirements were for Members to make themselves available to constituents. This was discussed by the Committee but no changes were proposed.
There was also some discussion concerning Members’ attendance at meetings and the tendering of apologies and it was proposed and accepted that although ideally, apologies should be tendered before the meeting, if the Member could show good cause as to why this had not been possible it should be acceptable to do it retrospectively. It was also suggested that if a Member failed to attend three successive meetings of a Committee, Sub-Committee or Panel of which he was a Member, this matter should be brought to the attention of the Member concerned, a reason for repeated non-attendance sought and a report should be submitted to the Standards Committee and, if appropriate, the subject Member’s Group Leader.
Resolved - That consideration of this matter be deferred to the Committee’s Meeting on 3rd April, 2006 to allow the schedule of Members’ roles and responsibilities and performance indicators to be amended as recommended and to also take into account the proposals now made by the Committee.