The Leader of the Isle of Wight council, Jonathan Bacon, has tabled a motion for tonight’s (Wednesday) Annual Council meeting calling for two decisions made at the last meeting to be rescinded.
Election of Executive members
The first decision relates to a motion tabled by Cllr Blezzard on 1st April that sought to change how members of the Executive are elected.
At present, like other councils across the country where a leader and cabinet executive model of governance is in place, the Leader of the council chooses members for their Executive.
Dispute over legality of motion
Last month’s motion by Cllr Blezzard, with the support of others in the chamber, called for that system to be changed and for the Leader and Executive members to be elected by members of the full council instead.
At the time, Cllr Bacon argued this could not be done without the approval of the Secretary of State, whilst the council’s Monitoring Officer confirmed it could take more than a year to obtain that approval, if at all.
Chairman had casting vote
Cllr Blezzard’s motion was voted upon, with the chairman using his casting vote in favour of the motion.
The lack of support for the motion by the Island Independent councillors was seen by many as surprising due to several of the councillors stating in their election leaflets that they supported cabinet members being elected by full council.
Waste of “time and money”
The Leader told OnTheWight that as well as “looking at a lengthy process that will only waste time and money and end up going nowhere”, the council have more pressing concerns to deal with.
He hoped to gain support for the previous decision to be rescinded tonight.
Named votes on Regulatory Committees
The second decision the leader is asking to be rescinded relates to named votes on decisions made by the Regulatory Committees.
He asks …
THAT Minute 41 (a)(iii) of the Full Council Meeting held on 1 April 2015 be rescinded in part in order to remove the requirement for a named vote to take place when decisions are made by the Regulatory Committees (as defined by Article 8 of the Isle of Wight Council Constitution). (NOTE this change will preserve the position whereby a named vote can still be requested by three members and also a named vote where the planning committee is making a decision contrary to officer recommendation)
Cllr Bacon told OnTheWight,
“In Licensing, a named vote would could undermine decisions – for example, what would happen if Magistrates made their decision by a public vote. In Planning there is a concern about the named vote procedure allowing perceived possible influence of voting and thereby perceived politicisation of a quasi judicial process.”
Full details are outlined in the paper below. Click on the full screen icon to see larger version.
Image: Simon Haytack under CC BY 2.0
