Agenda item

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the Meeting of the Council held on 14 July 2021, which are attached.

The Council is also asked, as this is its first physical meeting in the new Municipal Year, to ratify the following decisions made at the virtual Annual Meeting of the Council held on 19 May 2021, which could not be signed off by the Chief Executive in respect of the following minutes:

·         Minute 6 [Appointment of Chair of the Council]

·         Minute 8 [Appointment of Vice-Chair of the Council and Chair-Elect]

·         Minute 10 [Appointment of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council]

·             Minute 11 [Review of Entitlement of Political Groups to Seats on Committees [Proportionality) and Appointments to Committees]

·         Minute 12 [Representation on Outside Bodies]

For ease of reference by clicking on this link – you can access the Annual Council Meeting minutes here - Annual Council Meeting – Minutes – 19 May 2021

            The Chair requested Council to approve the Minutes of the Council Meeting held on 14 July 2021, which would be signed at the end of the meeting.

            Councillor Coster confirmed that the minutes were not accurate. He referred to Minute 113 [Petitions] – Page 84 in the second paragraph where he believed that references that he had made to the Constitution had not been included in that section of the minutes and should have been.  Councillor Coster requested that his Point of Order referring to Part 5, Section 1, Rule 17.11 (b) to amend a motion had not been allowed and he sought for an explanation from the Interim Monitoring Officer why this did not apply.

                The amendment proposed was that  “A  Point of Order was raised in relation to Part 5, Section 1, Council Procedure Rule 17.11 [Motions which may be moved during debate] (b) [to amend a Motion] where an explanation was sought from the Interim Monitoring Officer as to why this rule could not be applied.  The Chair repeated that this matter had been dealt with earlier in the meeting and he urged that Councillor from continuing to pursue this issue. The Interim Monitoring Officer stated that the petitioners had asked for the Council to give consideration to revocation of the planning permissions. This was happening now and there was no need to consider any alternative as the petitioner’s request was being met.

            The response from the Monitoring Officer was that he did not understand that it was felt that something else needed to be done when the petitioner’s request to consider the petition had Full Council had been met”.

            This amendment was seconded by Councillor Dixon.

            Concern was raised at the proposal to add this statement into the minutes and Members were reminded that verbatim minutes were not produced.  The opinion of Councillors was that the minutes did contain the key points discussed. 

            In view of the level of complexity surrounding the omission identified, it was agreed that the Committee Services Manager would review the webcast from the meeting and liaise with Councillors Coster and Dixon to ascertain what had been missed and if this needed to be included within the minutes.

            Based on this the minutes were then formally proposed as a correct record by Councillor Chapman and this was seconded by Bower and they were approved.

            The Chair requested that Councillor Batley’s abstention from voting be recorded in the minutes.

            The Chair then requested Council to ratify the decisions made at the Annual Meeting of the Council.

            The ratifications requested were proposed by Councillor Bower and seconded by Councillor Walsh.

            The Council

                        RESOLVED – That

                        That the decisions minuted as outlined below be approved:

(1)  Minute 6 [Appointment of Chair of the Council]

(2)  Minute 8 [Appointment of Vice-Chair of the Council and Chair -Elect]

(3)  Minute 10 [Appointment of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council]

(4)  Minute 11 [Review of Entitlement of Political Groups to Seats on Committees [Proportionality] and Appointments to Committees; and

(5)  Minute 12 [Representation on Outside Bodies].