Issue - meetings

This report set out details of the new duty, as set out in the Local Democratic, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, to establish a scheme for handling petitions and informing local people what action would be taken to address their concerns. It was noted that the 2009 Act had set standards and included the facility for electronic petitions.

A new scheme for handling petitions was set out in Appendix B to the report, which was largely based on the model scheme in the statutory guidance. It also incorporated recommendations from the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which were set out in the report.

The scheme set out guidelines for submitting petitions, an explanation of what the council would do upon the receipt of a petition and the possible responses along with details of what the council would do when a petition was received. It also included an appeal facility if the response was considered inadequate by the petition organisers. Further details of the new provisions for petitions to call a full Council debate and for calling officers to account were set out.

Reasons:

To seek clarity on the government's future intentions for the duty for Councils to establish a scheme for handling petitions as set out within the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Petitions would continue to be processed in line with the existing petition scheme as currently set out within the Constitution.

This report provides information about the new duty and proposes a new petitions scheme for inclusion in the Council’s Constitution. The Committee is invited to consider the proposed scheme and forward comments for inclusion in the reports to be considered by the Cabinet on 8 June and full Council at its meeting on 17 June 2010.

Discussion:

The Head of Democratic Services presented a report informing Members that every Local Authority was now required to respond to petitions and inform local people what action was going to be taken to address their concerns. It was noted that the report provided information about the new duty and proposed a new petitions scheme for inclusion in the Council’s Constitution.

Members were informed that Medway already had a petitions scheme but was required to adopt a new scheme which had to meet minimum requirements, as set out in paragraph 2.3 of the report. It was reported that there was now a requirement to introduce a facility for e-petitioning and officers expected this to be in use by the 15 December 2010 deadline.

The Head of Democratic Services reported that in terms of the number of signatures required (thresholds) for triggering a debate at Full Council or an officer of the Council being held to account, the report suggested that this should be thresholds of 1% and 0.5% of the population respectively and that these figures mirrored the figures of the model scheme. Members were provided with figures to assist in debating the alternative options, if necessary.

The Head of Democratic Services advised the Committee that paragraph 9.4 (ix) in the reportshould be corrected to clarify that any request for a review of the way the Council had handled a petition must be referred to an Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  There was no scope for an automatic referral of a review request to full Council. Therefore, on occasions, when the Business Support had already considered a petition it would have to receive any subsequent request for a review from petitioners but may decide to refer the matter to full Council if it considered there was scope for a conflict of interest.

Members were concerned that the suggested thresholds were set too low and that there was a need to ensure that there was a focus on substantial issues rather than minor or possibly frivolous issues.

Members recommended that the thresholds should be increased to 2% and 1% of the population to for triggering a debate at Full Council and an officer being held to account respectively and that these thresholds could be amended at a later date if found to be too high.

Members asked how officers would be able to check if petitioners lived, worked or studied in Medway. The Head of Democratic Services responded that it was proposed to continue accepting all petitions, irrespective of who has signed them in line with Medway’s current scheme and added that a delegation was being requested to enable the Monitoring Officer delegation to rule out vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate petitions.

Members expressed concern that the introduction of e-petitions could significantly increase the number of petitions received and whether residents could use multiple email addresses to register their name more than once for a petition.

It was noted that the proposed scheme would require that e-petitioners to give their name,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16