Agenda item

The Leader will attend the meeting in order to be held to account for matters within the remit of this committee. 

Members received an overview of progress made within the Leader’s Portfolio falling within the remit of the Committee over the last year which included the following subjects:

·                    Democratic Services 

·                    Electoral Services

·                    Euro Elections

·                    Register of Electors 2014

·                    Individual Electoral Registration (IER)

·                    Member and Mayoral Services

The Leader, Councillor Rodney Chambers, responded to Members’ questions and comments as follows:

·                    The Leader was thanked for an interesting and varied report.

·                    Localism – in response to a question about the impact of Localism the Leader responded that the Council was at the forefront of public consultation particularly with regard to engagement with the community in relation to the Council’s regeneration programme.

·                    Individual Electoral Registration (IER) - concern was expressed at the use of an A3 format for individual registration instead of a more easily used A4 format. The view was expressed that Individual Electoral Registration may result in the disenfranchisement of some people and a drop in the level of registration. It was also pointed out that IER would be dependent on the success of a new IT system and that the track record for IT systems in the public sector was not good. The Leader responded that he had no reason to believe the IT systems would not be fit for purpose and that efforts would continue to be made to encourage and require voter registration. He reported that he had been advised that 86.82% of households had responded to the canvass to date and this was before the formal end of the canvass period. The Leader agreed to take forward further work to ensure that targeted action to encourage voter registration was taking place in Wards with the lowest levels of registration. He agreed it would be useful to also analyse the areas where there is the most turnover of residential occupation and that this was likely to mirror the areas known to have the lowest levels of registration. The Leader advised he would refer a request for clarification of the term “responsible person” and a definition of what would constitute “alternative documentation” as referred to on page 22 of the agenda around “attestation” to the Head of Elections and Members Services for a response, as this was a technical matter.

·                    Council and the democratic process - the Leader was asked for his reflections on the democratic process at the Council meeting on 23 January 2014 in terms of public involvement. He was also asked if he had reflected on the requests made in an open letter from the Labour Group following that meeting. The Leader stated that the Council meeting had been run democratically and in accordance with Council Procedures. All the people who had submitted questions had been advised that thirty minutes was set aside at Council meetings for questions and that written answers would be given if there was insufficient time for all the questions to be put. The Leader said copies of questions would be provided to everyone in the public gallery at Council meetings in future. He also pointed out that more public questions could have been answered if a motion for the questioners to read out their questions rather than just receiving the answers had not been put, which had consumed a great deal of the allotted time.

Decision:

The Leader of the Council was thanked for his attendance and the answers he had provided to the Committee, and it was noted that further work would be taken forward to ensure that targeted action to encourage voter registration was taking place in Wards with the lowest levels of registration and that this would include an analysis of the areas where there is high turnover in terms of residential occupation.