At next week’s Full Council meeting a number of changes to Constitutional Issues will be debated and voted upon by members. One such area that will see a change is public question time.
If the changes are voted through, in future there’ll be a requirement to register before being able to ask an oral question. At the moment, you can just turn up and ask during the 15 minutes allocated at the beginning of council meetings.
Must register within allotted time
You’ll have to provide details of your name, town or village of residence, email (or home) address and the topic of the question.
Not only that but you’ll need to ensure that you do this during the 20 minutes allotted period. That is, between 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting up until ten minutes prior to the start of the meeting.
If you arrive less than ten minutes before the meeting starts, you won’t be able to ask an oral question. Unwelcome news for those relying on public transport and may usually turn up just moments before the meeting starts.
The council’s reasoning for change
The paperwork states ….
Group Leaders have recently considered amendments to the current arrangements for public questions at the Council and Cabinet meetings. This is in the light of recent events when it became increasingly apparent that there was confusion in some quarters over who should answer questions (whether submitted in writing or orally at the meeting) and furthermore that more confident and regular attendees in the public gallery may, through their determination to ask a question, assume priority (without good reason) for asking a question when compared to those attending a meeting to ask a question for the first time.
It was also felt that there needed to be more information made available to the Chairman when the meeting gets to the public question time section, to ensure that the proper formality and structure of proceedings is retained.
It is therefore suggested that the following changes to the Constitution are made:
(a) Making it clear that questions (either written or oral) will usually be answered by either the Leader, or relevant Cabinet Member, or another member as determined by the Chairman. This acknowledges that questions, which must relate to the policy or budget, should only normally be answered by those members with executive (Cabinet) responsibility for such areas.(b) That those wishing to submit an oral question at a meeting follow the procedure as set out in Appendix D to this report of pre-registering the fact that they wish to ask an oral question just before the commencement of the meeting. This will enable the Chairman to deal with questions on a fairer basis and enable the Chairman to call members of the public forward in the order in which the requests to ask oral questions have been received.
New arrangements
The proposed new arrangements for “submitting oral questions at meetings of Council and Cabinet” are detailed as follows:
a. That the front desk “opens” for public wishing to attend the meeting half an hour before the meeting.
b. When signing in at the front desk as attending a Council or Cabinet meeting each member of the public is asked whether they wish to ask an oral question at the meeting AND / OR if the member of the public indicates themselves that they wish to ask an oral question.
c. In the circumstances that a member of the public wishes to ask an oral question, they be given a form to complete which details their name, town / village of residence, email (or home) address and the topic of the question (not the question in full, unless they wish to provide this).
d. These forms will be consecutively numbered in the order handed back.
e. The time for registering will be from 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting up until 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting.
f. At the expiry of the 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting these sheets will be collected and given to the Chairman of that meeting, in numbered order.
g. When the meeting gets to the agenda item for public questions, and if time allows after dealing with any written questions, the Chairman will then ask those who have submitted an oral question (in the numbered order that they were handed back) to put their question and as the subject matter is known at that stage the Chairman should be able to indicate which member will reply.
h. The option of supplementary questions for both written questions and these registered oral questions will be available, at the Chairman’s discretion.
i. A person who has submitted a written question will not also be able to submit an oral question at the same meeting.
j. Once the defined period of time allowed for questions has passed (and assuming the Chairman has not extended this) then all unanswered oral questions are left at that (unless Chairman exercises his / her discretion to extend).
k. No oral question will receive a guaranteed written response, unless the member responding indicates as such.
l. The procedure set out above, along with guidance information, will be made available from a weblink to the agenda and also to those individuals who register to ask written or oral questions.
