Agenda item

The Panel considered a report of the Monitoring Officer which advised of the need for Rules of Procedure, advised of the necessary contents of those Rules and presented Rules of Procedure for approval (for copy see file of minutes).

Mr Vaulks sought clarification on paragraph 8.1 of the Rules.  The Monitoring Officer replied that this paragraph should be amended to remove the words ‘the notice of motion only if’ from the second line of the paragraph.

In response to a question from Councillor Huntington regarding paragraph 5 of the report, the Monitoring Officer informed the Panel that these were the functions which the Panel could not be discharged to a committee or sub-committee of the Panel.

Ms Larkin-Bramley suggested, and the Panel agreed, that the Rules of Procedure be reviewed after the Panel had been operating for 12 months.

Members expressed some concern at the quorum for the Panel being only a quarter of the membership, suggesting that this level was too low.  The Monitoring Officer replied that the Panel would need to have a number of meetings over the forthcoming months, some of which may be called at relatively short notice, which may cause problems if the quorum was increased.  Councillor Armstrong suggested that the Panel be given time to bed down and that issues such as this be considered in May of next year, when examples of best practice from other PCP’s could be considered.

Resolved:

That the report be agreed and the Rules of Procedure be reviewed in May 2013.