Closures, cancellations and suspended services

Due to the national response to the coronavirus, all formal and public Council meetings have been cancelled until further notice.

This includes all Planning Committee meetings.

The position on meetings for the 2020-21 municipal year is being considered, following the publication of regulations by the Government allowing meetings to be held remotely.  

The following arrangements have been agreed.

Portfolio Holder decisions

Portfolio Holder decisions are continuing as normal except that the following changes have been regarding physical the signing of the Decision Notice with the PA to Cabinet.

If a Portfolio Holder is content with a decision to be made, they can either:

• authorise the PA to Cabinet to attach their electronic signature, or 
• send a confirmatory email that they are content for the decision to be published. This confirmatory email must be kept with the formal decision, be it paper or electronic

Portfolio Holder decisions continue to be subject to call-in by the Scrutiny Panel as per our usual procedures.

Scrutiny

Meetings of the Scrutiny Panel were cancelled along with all other meetings as part of our response to the Coronavirus pandemic. This resulted in the normal scrutiny function being suspended so that immediate operational management decisions could be taken. The following Interim Scrutiny Arrangements have been implemented: 

• The Interim Scrutiny Arrangements provide that before any Significant Decision being taken the Chair of Scrutiny (or in whose absence, the Deputy Chair) will be consulted (Councillors Davies or Bentley). 
• A Significant Decision will be a decision where the Council is incurring expenditure of £1millon plus or is a strategic decision which will affect the whole of the Borough. These decisions would then be reported back to the first available meeting of Cabinet.
• The Interim Scrutiny Arrangements will be reported back to the first available Scrutiny Panel meeting.

Forward Plan of key decisions

The publication of the Forward Plan of key decisions has been suspended for one month.

The next Forward Plan will be published on or around 1 May 2020.