Issue - meetings

In accordance with the Council’s Scheme of Delegation to officers, this report sets out urgent decisions taken by officers in consultation with committee Chairs for the period 3 June 2025 to 10 June 2026. This report also includes an Appendix 2, which sets out the process followed by Urgent Decision 158.

The Committee received a report in accordance with the Council’s Scheme of Delegation to officers, that set out urgent decisions taken by officers in consultation with committee Chairs for the period 3 June 2025 to 10 June 2026. This report also included an Appendix 2, which sets out the process followed by Urgent Decision 158.

The following matters were considered:

a)             Criteria for Urgent Decisions: A Member raised the issue of reasons given for taking an urgent decision which he said were conflicting and were applied incorrectly to urgent decisions 157 and 159. He quoted the two reasons used for taking urgent decisions was not being able to convene a quorate committee or that a decision was needed prior to the next committee meeting and requested clarification. Another Member cited examples where other committees had convened a quorate meeting at short notice. The Democratic Services Officer explained the process for licensing sub-committees in setting meetings and that whilst it may appear to be done quickly, much time went into organising them. The Assistant Director for Corporate Services stated he was unsure If the urgent decisions cited could be changed retrospectively but going forward the reason used could be amended.

b)             Proposals for Scheme of Delegations: Councillor McCormick proposed two new recommendations. 1) that ‘Any urgent decision that commits the Council to a financial liability, capital spend or loss of revenue exceeding £50k must require an extraordinary public or unrestricted committee meeting rather than being signed off via a single officer and chair in private.’ 2) The second recommendation was for mandatory online publishing of urgent decisions and to mandate that all urgent decision forms were redacted only where legally necessary for commercial sensitivity, must be published on the Council's public website within five working days of being signed, eliminating the lag in notifying backbench members and the public.

Several Members spoke against the proposals made and Councillor Coley spoke of the motion put to full Council and the work already being undertaken.  Councillor McCormick withdrew his recommendations.

c)             Process around Urgent Decision 158: A Member asked several questions around the lack of written documentation of the urgent decision either in the form of a published urgent decision form or in the form of internal meeting notes of the Strategic Leadership Team and asked for confirmation that this was the case and if so, was it the way a council should behave. The Assistant Director for Corporate Services declined to answer repeated questions on the basis that the answer had already been given more than once, but did state that the Chief Executive authorised the exemption of Urgent Decision 158 and had agreed that going forward, her approval for exempt papers would be evidenced, although there was no requirement to do so. The Legal Advisor stated that there would not normally be written evidence of a decision for exemption but that in making the decision exempt it would need to fall under the legal categories for exemption and the public  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8