Issue - meetings

This report provides details of the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s recommendation to ask the Council to consider amending the Council’s Petition Scheme to accept e-petitions which do not include all of the personal details currently required by the scheme.

Discussion:

This report provided details of a reference from the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee (30 January 2018), which asked the Council to consider amending the Council’s Petition Scheme to accept e-petitions which did not include all of the personal details currently required by the scheme. The report provided an update on discussions between the Council and mod.gov, the organisation which supplies the Council’s e-petitions system, about the possibility of developing the facility so that it could provide some of the functionality provided by other e-petition platforms.

The Chairman of the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Carr, supported by Councillor Etheridge, proposed the following:

“9.1 Council is requested to note the discussion and recommendations from the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and agree the following:

a)    That Council notes that, as outlined in paragraph 5.3 of the report, officers have explored the potential to develop the Council’s e-petition facility so that it may incorporate some of the functionality of other e-petition platforms to become petitioners’ preferred e-petition platform, and have found that the cost of doing so is outside of current budget restraints. This matter to be reconsidered in six months’ time.

b)    That Council resolves only to accept e-petitions which fully comply with the existing requirements of Medway Council’s constitution, i.e. where an e-petition hosted on an alternative platform is received by the Council, the petition will only be accepted when the Council is able to see a name, postal address, a valid postcode and email address for the lead petitioner as well as each signatory.

c)    That Council instructs the Head of Democratic Services to include clear advice on the Council website that e-petitions hosted on external websites cannot be accepted under the Council’s current arrangements for handling petitions unless the information required by the Petition Scheme is supplied”.

Councillor Maple, supported by Stamp, proposed the following amendment:

“9.1 - Delete all text after the word “Council” and replace with “approves an amendment to the Council’s Petition Scheme to accept e-petitions which do not include all of the personal details (name, address, postcode and email address) currently required by the scheme. This should only be permitted where there is evidence that an organisation hosting the e-petition requires the lead petitioner and any signatories to register this information.

The wording for the amendment to the scheme is as laid out on page 4.6 of Appendix A to the report.”

In accordance with Rule 12.4 of the Council Rules, a recorded vote on the amendment was taken.

For – Councillors Bowler, Cooper, Craven, Freshwater, Gilry, Griffiths, Johnson, Khan, Maple, McDonald, Murray, Osborne, Paterson, Shaw and Stamp (15)

Against – Councillors Aldous, Avey, Bhutia, Brake, Carr, Mrs Diane Chambers, Chitty, Clarke, Doe, Etheridge, Fearn, Filmer, Franklin, Griffin, Gulvin, Hicks, Howard, Mrs Josie Iles, Steve Iles, Jarrett, Joy, Kemp, Mackness, Opara, Potter, Purdy, Royle, Saroy, Tejan, Tranter, Turpin, Wicks, Wildey and Williams (34)

Note: Councillors Chishti and Hall were not present for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 967

This report deals with the Council’s arrangements regarding E-petitions.

Discussion:

At its meeting on 30 November 2017, the Committee had agreed that a report on e-petitions be presented to this meeting in light of an increase in the number of e-petitions being submitted to the Council which had been set up on platforms other than the e-petition facility provided by mod.gov and hosted on the Council’s website.

Members noted that the Council’s Petition Scheme stipulated that e-petitions must follow the same guidelines as paper petitions. A petition organiser, and any person supporting the petition, must provide their name, address, a valid postcode and e-mail address. This requirement was not being met when petitions hosted on external platforms were submitted to the Council. Although officers subsequently sought this information from petition organisers, it was not available.

A Member suggested that some people preferred to use other e-petition platforms in preference to the Council’s own facility because they did not wish to register their details with the Council.  Also, by using other platforms, they had the ability to add photographs, provide updates and comments, and link a petition to other social media platforms. These functions were currently not available on the Council’s e-petition facility. It was also suggested that someone who was searching how to create a petition would be more likely to find websites such as Change.org than the Council’s website. Members were advised that there was a recent example of an e-petition on the Council’s website that had attracted over 2,000 signatures.

A Member proposed that officers explore the potential to develop the Council’s e-petition facility so that it incorporated some of the functionality of other e-petition platforms and became petitioners’ preferred e-petition platform. It was further proposed that, whilst this development work was being undertaken on the Council’s e-petition facility, petitions from other e-petition platforms should be accepted and considered by the Council.

The Council’s Monitoring Officer advised that there could be no interim change to the Constitution and that any proposal to accept e-petitions from platforms other than the Council’s e-petition facility would need to be referred to Full Council.  If the Committee was minded to recommend such a proposal,  Full Council would need to consider an amendment to the Council’s Petition Scheme to accept e-petitions which did not include all of the personal details currently required by the scheme.

Decision:

The Committee agreed that:

a)     Officers explore the potential to develop the Council’s e-petition facility so that it incorporated some of the functionality of other e-petition platforms and became petitioners’ preferred e-petition platform.

b)     Full Council consider an amendment to the Council’s Petition Scheme to accept e-petitions which did not include all of the personal details currently required by the scheme.