Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Head of Legal and Democratic Services that advised of a request for call-in of a Cabinet decision, and of the decision made by the Chairman of the Board not to call-in the decision (for copy see file of minutes).

The Legal Manager, Governance and Elections advised that it was the Chairman’s view that this was not an appropriate case for call-in, however he was of the view that it should be added to the work programme of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board, and a meeting with Members, chief officers and Trustees be arranged to explore how the Council could continue to meet the desire of the public to have access to the DLI collection.

The Chairman commented that he was not approached about the call-in initially and first heard of the request to call-in the decision from an article in the media. He advised that call-in requires the Chairman of Overview and Scrutiny, in consultation with the Vice-Chairman of Overview and Scrutiny, Chief Officers and the Monitoring Officer to consider the request in accordance with the relevant protocol.

He referred to the reasons for call-in and clarified that lead group members had no prior knowledge of the decision, contrary to the statement made in the call-in request. He added that Members had the opportunity to ask questions at County Council and the Cabinet meeting, however, no questions had been submitted.

On reviewing the process, the Chairman did recognise that there was a need to expand on certain issues and made arrangements for a special meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on the 10 December 2015. The aim was to make the collection more accessible to the public and he felt that the meeting was very positive. The Cabinet Portfolio holder attended the special meeting and clarified that there were no plans for a housing development on the site and that the building would be advertised to internal services in the first instance, then placed on the asset register. The Chairman of the DLI Trustees was also in attendance and thanked Durham County Council for their support and for developing a plan for the future arrangements of regimental collections.

In response, Councillor Hopgood advised that the paperwork had been submitted on her request as she was away and was only informed of the report the night before the Cabinet papers were published. It was her understanding that members could only ask questions at Cabinet if the item being considered affected the electoral division they represented. The Legal Manager, Governance and Elections advised that she would provide clarification on the protocol for Cabinet questions.

Councillor Hopgood asked that the Future Arrangements of the DLI be reviewed after three months.

Resolved:

(i)        That the information contained in the report be noted;

(ii)       That an update report on the progress made against the implementation of the future DLI arrangements be considered after a period of three months.