Issue - meetings

Note: The deadline for amendments to reports published with the final Council agenda is midnight, Monday 12 September 2006.

To consider a report of the Governance Committee on Exclusions of Prior Approvals from Councillor Call-in Process (attached).

Report AGREED with division.

A report of the Governance Committee requested Council to agree that prior approval planning applications could not be called-in to the Regulatory Services Committee unless an Extension of Time agreement had been sought and agreed by the applicant. Such prior approvals would henceforth be included in the weekly publicity list in to better communicate to ward Members the nature and extent of such applications. The matter would be reviewed again after three months and a report taken to Governance Committee.

The report as AGREED without division and it was RESOLVED:

1.            That the proposals set out within the report that prior approval submissions cannot be called-in for determination by the Regulatory Services Committee unless an Extension of Time Agreement has been sought and agreed by the applicant be ratified.

2.            That it be noted that prior approval applications will now be included on the weekly publicity list of applications and that after a three month period to enable assessment of whether a call-in arrangement is justified a report will be provided to the Governance Committee and any changes to the proposals would return to Council before being applied.

3.            That the Monitoring Officer be authorised to make such amendments to the Constitution as are appropriate to confirm the arrangements in 1 above.

At its meeting on 13 July, councillors considered a motion on behalf of the Independent Residents’ Group to make minor amendments to the existing arrangements for Councillor car parking at Havering Town Hall.  Council resolved that: “This Council, in recognising that when the charges for staff car parking were introduced they also applied to councillors who did not wish to impose on staff charges which they were unwilling to accept themselves, wishes this principle to continue and requests Governance Committee to review the implementation of the current scheme in order to ascertain whether any practical adjustments are appropriate”

Members were accordingly now invited to consider how best to implement Council’s expressed wishes.  All Members present disclosed an interest in this matter at the outset.

The issue appeared to be two-fold: Access to the car park at the Town Hall and the definition of what constituted “Council business”.  This item received wide input from Members and at the end of the discussion the Committee had agreed with the proposal that Members’ passes to be “switched on” to permit access to the Town Hall car park instead of having to contact reception each time.  They accepted that the onus was very much on each Member to buy a parking ticket if they had not elected to pay for parking in advance.

Members did accept that they should continue to sign-in for formal meetings and it was considered reasonable that the swipe card audit details and meeting attendances should be sufficient to effect random checks.

The Chief Executive was asked if it would be possible for Members to purchase “one day a week” passes and he said that this would be considered and Members would be apprised of its viability in due course.  In the mean-time, instructions would be issued to arrange a start date for Members’ badges to be activated for the Town Hall car park barrier.

The Committee:

1             Noted the report

2             Agreed that all Members should have their passes activated so that they would be allowed access to the Town Hall car park without recourse to the Reception Staff.

3             Accepted that it would be the responsibility of each Member to pay for parking tickets if they were not on Council business.

4             Confirmed their support of the principle that all Members would pay for parking along with Staff.

5             Requested that they be provided with advice about the feasibility of purchasing limited access parking (such as one-day a week) for those Members who did not have a regular attendance requirement.