Agenda item

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, address and a valid email address and this should assist in dealing with any abuse of the system.

Members were concerned that named officers of the council could be held to account by petitioners in the new scheme.

Members were informed that the legislation was clear that people must have the right to petition for a senior council officer to attend a public meeting of an Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Members were advised that these petitions must be about something for which the officer is responsible as part of their job and must not involve inappropriate public scrutiny of their private lives or character.

Decision:

The Committee agreed to:

(1)   recommend the petitions scheme attached at Appendix B to the report to Cabinet for onward referral to the full Council for adoption and inclusion in the Council’s constitution ( as Appendix A to the Council rules in Chapter) subject to the following amendments:

·        that the threshold should be 2% of  the population as the number of signatures required to trigger a debate at full Council.

·        That the threshold should be 1% of the population as the number of signatures required to trigger an officer being held to account at an overview and scrutiny committee;

(2)   recommend that authority is delegated to the Monitoring Officer to determine when it would not be appropriate for a petition to be handled under the petitions scheme because it is deemed to be vexatious, abusive, otherwise inappropriate or excluded from the scheme, taking into account relevant law and statutory guidance;

(3)   recommend the Cabinet to refer to full Council the changes required to the Constitution as a consequence of introduction of a petitions scheme as set out in Appendix C.