Issue - items at meetings - Chair's Communications

34.1    The Chair welcomed the attendance of a student from Longhill School accompanying Cllr Cox as part of a work experience programme.

34.2    The Chair expressed his disappointment at it having been deemed necessary to hold a call-in meeting in relation to this issue, noting that such a meeting would probably not have been called had all the members of the Children & Young People Committee (CYP) been in attendance when the issue was originally discussed.

34.3    In response to a query from Cllr Peltzer Dunn, the scrutiny officer, Giles Rossington, told members that the meeting papers had been sent out in an incomplete form to allow members time to read them. Since their despatch two additional items of information had been received: the draft legal implications contained in the call-in report had been signed off by the Council’s lawyer, Andrew Peck; and an extract from the draft minutes of the October 15 CYP meeting had been approved and circulated.

34.4    It was also pointed out that Appendix 2 to the call-in report consisted of the report that should have been presented to the October 15 CYP meeting. This was identical to the report that was erroneously presented, save for there being additional text/information at points 3.8, 3.10, 3.12, 3.13 and 5.3. This additional information was italicised (save for the table at 3.12 which was also additional).

34.5    In response to a query from Cllr Marsh as to why no lawyer was present, Mr Rossington informed members that lawyers were not routinely present at scrutiny meetings, but that scrutiny staff could advise on constitutional matters pertaining to the call-in process. The department whose decision had been called in was responsible for deciding whether their lawyers should attend to answer substantive legal points relating to the decision.

26.1    There were none other than to confirm that Councillor Theobald would be chairing the meeting as Councillor Rufus was unable to attend due to a personal matter.