Agenda item

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 interest taken into account.

A Member stated that it was the Deputy Chief Executive that made this decision in the absence of the Chief Executive and asked what the time limit was for retrospectively deciding that an urgent decision was exempt. The Assistant Director clarified that the Chief Executive was present at the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) meetings where this urgent decision was discussed and was aware of the sensitive nature of it. There was no written record of that decision being decided at SLT and there was not a requirement for there to be so. The Legal Advisor responded that at the time of making a decision one would consider whether it was exempt decision or not. However, a public paper could be made exempt at any time due to circumstances changing. There was nothing in law that says what a reasonable period of time is. In response to a further question the Legal Advisor confirmed that a leaked exempt paper remained exempt despite it being leaked to the public. A few councillors criticised the whole process used for this urgent decision to be taken by an officer and that a quorate extra ordinary committee meeting could have been arranged and claimed deliberate engineering of time in order not to take this decision to committee.

A Member asked questions around the specifics of Urgent Decision 158 and exactly what was authorised. The Chair encouraged the member to email his questions as they were outside the scope of this committee and there were no officers present to answer them. The Member requested that responses to committee member question be made public.

Cllr Coley proposed a motion that a change be made to the Constitution which would read ‘When an issue of significance arises, which will change the Council’s Constitution or require expenditure above £50,000, the first action should be to call and schedule a Committee Meeting’. The motion was carried. The Legal Advisor confirmed that this would need to be a committee recommendation to the Standards and Constitution Committee or the Member could put a motion to full Council without the committee’s consent.

Cllr Ames proposed a second recommendation to read: ‘This Committee notes that the process followed for urgent decision 158 did not follow the correct procedure and was not justified according to the information provided to this Committee. Cllr Coley seconded the proposal. This was carried.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)       Note the urgent decisions taken by officers, in consultation with relevant committee Chairs, recorded using urgent decision forms from 3 June 2025 to 10 June 2026, and the process followed for Urgent Decision 158.

The Committee also resolved to (4 for and 2 against):

(2)       Recommend to Standards and Constitution Committee that the following is added to the Urgent Decision Process, ‘When an issue of significance arises, which will change the Council’s Constitution or require expenditure above £50,000, the first action should be to call and schedule a Committee Meeting.’

(3)       Note that UD158 did not follow the correct stated procedure and was not justified according to the information given to this Committee.

Cllr Ames declared an interest in that he was a member of the Standards and Constitution Committee.

Cllr Leach and Cllr Froud left the room for four minutes during the debate on this item. 

At 10.16pm the Committee adjourned and reconvened at 10.22pm