Agenda item

No public questions were received before the deadline of 12 noon on 6 December 2016

Although there were no public questions for this meeting the Mayor took the opportunity to address Council on the general issue of Member and public questions for Council as she had some concerns following the Council meeting on 17 October.  She felt it was very important how Members were perceived by the public and since the meeting she had met with officers to review how the process could be improved. There had also been discussions with Group Leaders and this had resulted in a set of guidelines which she wished to adopt for future meetings.  She emphasised that these were not constitutional changes but they represented a set of good practice for the procedures and behaviours to be followed in the Council chamber.

Firstly the Leader would aim to get answers to questions with Democratic Services by 10 am on the day of the Council meeting subject to getting all the technical input needed. Democratic Services will advise the public that the questions and responses will be available on the website on the morning of the meeting by 11 am, allowing that some may require further finalisation on the day. This should give questioners plenty of time to review the responses given and prepare any supplementary questions.

At the start of Public Questions the Mayor will remind any public in the gallery that hard copies of the questions and responses are available at the back of the gallery so they can follow proceedings.

The Mayor will stress to Members of the public that questions and responses will be taken as read to save time unless they make a specific request to read out their question which is their right under the Constitution.  The Constitution allows 30 minutes in total for questions which could be extended at the Mayor’s discretion but it was important to make the best use of the time available and allow time for everybody to ask their questions.

 Regarding supplementary questions, these should be directly related to the original question or the response and be a question rather than a statement and a lot of background should not be necessary. The Mayor would enforce this during the meeting and prompt the questioner to put their question when necessary.

When responding to questions the Mayor urged Members to respond specifically to the supplementary question asked and answer it concisely.

If a questioner feels their question has not been answered then just repeating their original question is likely to get the same answer so the questioner could consider asking the question in a different way.  

The Mayor reminded Members that it is more difficult for the public in the gallery to follow the debate so she asked Members to speak clearly into the microphones and keep any papers clear of the microphones.

During all the proceedings the Mayor requested that Members treat each other and the public with respect.  The Council should be encouraging the public to get involved and ask questions so Members needed to respond politely, positively and with clarity.
 

Finally the Mayor asked the Head of Legal Services to clarify the differences between points of order and points of personal explanation as there had been a number of these at recent meetings. He referred Members to section 13.30 of the Council Procedure Rules.