Issue - meetings

The Head of Policy, Communications and Governance introduced the report and explained the three proposed stages of training. A briefing on the new constitution would be delivered prior to consideration at full council, and then training would be provided on Executive and Scrutiny arrangements and Procedure Rules as part of the Member Induction, to which all Members would be invited. The third stage would be set out within the Member Development Programme for 2022/23 and would include training for key roles such as Chairing Skills and Overview and Scrutiny Skills.  This would be presented to the Committee to agree at the beginning of the Municipal Year, and could be reviewed after six months.

In response to questions, the Head of Policy, Communications and Governance confirmed that the Democratic Services Team would be available to discuss any aspects of the new constitution with Members on an individual basis.

The Democratic and Electoral Services Manager added that Members could also contact the Democratic Services Team directly if they had any specific training requests throughout the year.

It was requested that officers collate questions and answers and make them available to all Members.

RESOLVED: That the three-stage approach to brief Councillors on the new constitution and embed the new governance model through the Member Development Programme, as set out in section 3, option 1 of the report, be approved, with the addition of:

a)  A drop-in session and an in-person training session on the new constitution;

b)  Availability of officers to answer questions of individual Members regarding the constitution and new governance model; and

c)  A ‘FAQ’ document to be produced from the questions that come forward to officers.