Agenda item

Members were circulated with a further draft copy of the petition scheme which they had discussed at their last meeting and at which they had made a recommendation to the Portfolio Holder.  Since that meeting the issue of who should be the delegated officer had been discussed at the Constitution Committee and they had recommended that the Constitution be amended to appoint the Monitoring Officer to be the Petitions Officer.

Following the submission of the draft scheme for approval by the Portfolio Holder queries had been raised about some of the content of the scheme and the Engagement PDG had been asked to again look at the scheme before it went to Council in December.  Also the issue of e-petitions needed to be addressed within the scheme as this aspect came into force on the 16th December and a section on e-petitions had been added.  

Members went through the draft page by page and agreed the changes as shown in bold below:

Page 1 – Members agreed the inclusion of the wording Petitions Officer by the side of the Monitoring Officer

             – The issue of including children and young people was then discussed and the difficulties faced about validating children and young people within the scheme. After an in depth discussion Members decided not to include the wording (including children and young people) within the scheme.

Page 3, 8 & 9 – The Monitoring Officer informed the Group that the wording included in 2.1.4 and 2.1.5 in relation to “affected area” was very hard to define and felt that this issue would be challenged when it got to Council. (The same wording also appeared on pages 8 & 9). They needed to define an affected area and she referred to the electoral ward areas that had been circulated and asked Members to reconsider the wording.  It was proposed and seconded to raise the number of signatories from 3,000 to 5,000 but leave in the 51% of the electorate in the affected area if less than 5,000.

The Monitoring Officer argued strongly that the definition of “an affected area” would be very difficult to define when a petition was received and she referred to other authorities’ petitions that she had looked at which only gave a figure as none had a satisfactory solution when defining an affected area.  Members who had been involved in the working group referred to the long period of time that had been taken up by the Group discussing this issue and they felt very strongly that the sentence should be kept in the document to allow everyone the opportunity of putting their petition before Council.  One Member did offer that if the signatories were increased to 5,000 and the wording restricted to cover two or one ward if someone felt strongly enough then they would actively seek people to sign their petition to get the necessary signatories.  Other Members disagreed and referred to the parishes of Swayfield and Swinstead who would not be interested in something happening at Boothby Pagnell.  On being put to the vote it was agreed to increase the figure to 5,000 and keep (this is reduced to 51% of the electorate in the affected area if less than 5,000).  The Monitoring Officer then gave an example to Members about how this would work in practice and that by not defining a specific area they were fettering the Council with issues that affected a very small number of people.    Members were adamant that the size of an affected area should not mean that people were treated differently.  Further discussions followed on the subject with examples being given by Members and the Monitoring Officer reiterating that by not defining a specific area the Council could easily be challenged.  If was further agreed to include a sentence which said “the figures in 2.1.4 and 2.1.5 above can be revised by Council at any time.”    

With regard to holding an Officer to Account Members agreed to keep the figure at 1,500 but still retain (this is reduced to 51% of the electorate in the affected area if less than 1,500).

Page 4 – Members agreed the inclusion of the note on inappropriate words with the inclusion after Planning & Licensing (which will be referred direct to the relevant committee)

Page 9 & 10 – Members agreed the wording of the scheme in relation to e-petitions 8.1 to 8.7    

A short presentation was then given to Members by the Democratic Officer about how the new e-petition scheme would work.