Agenda item

Information on matters of urgency is available online

The Chairman stated that an issue had arisen from the meeting of Cabinet the previous evening, and he had accordingly decided that it would have to be raised as a matter of urgency due to the timings of the two meetings involved.

At the Scrutiny Committee meeting on 7 February, four recommendations were referred to Cabinet and discussed on 6 March. At the Cabinet meeting it was resolved that the recommendations would not be accepted. The Chairman said that the final recommendation from Cllr Hughes about a post appeal panel may have been accepted but was not clear.

The Chairman was particularly concerned about the restrictions caused by having a short call-in period.   He stated that at EDDC most of the decisions are made by Cabinet members and Portfolio Holders which is a small proportion of all councillors. Call-ins are an important aspect of the checks and balances within the decision making process and allow other non-cabinet members to participate in the process. They are also a rare occurrence.

Following discussion at Cabinet, Cllr Thomas had suggested that training for Councillors might be helpful.

Scrutiny members were disappointed with this outcome, particularly because call-ins were infrequent.

Cllr Wragg stated that she had initiated the suggestion to have a call-in on the specific issue discussed at the last Scrutiny Committee because she was not getting information and answers to questions she was putting to officers. It was not a trivial matter and involved a potentially large sums of money. The Chief Executive, Mark Williams, had informed those supporting a call-in that it could be discussed at Scrutiny Committee but not called-in.

Cllr Bond stated that the Strategic Lead for Governance & Licensing and Monitoring Officer, Henry Gordon-Lennox, had addressed the issue at Cabinet and stated that the Portfolio Holder decision in the case concerned had been called in correctly, but the amount of money involved was too small to warrant the call-in.

Committee members queried whether the recommendations put to Cabinet and not accepted, could be re-presented and go to Council in order for a debate to be had on the issues raised. Cllr Godbeer suggested that the issue could be discussed at Council if was raised as a called minute.

During the discussion some members wanted the timescale for call-ins to be clarified. Others commented that they had no experience of a call-in since being a councillor and because so few decisions were called-in.

The Chairman stated that he was not confused about the issues relating to call-ins, and considered that the conditions for call-ins were too restrictive. Henry Gordon-Lennox had commented at Cabinet that if the process was extended from five days to ten, it would not be helpful.

Cllr Chapman stated that the message given to members changed throughout the process of dealing with this issue, having initially being told that they were out of time, and then being told by Mark Williams that the call-in was in time. She went on to query that if members supporting the call-in were not out of time, then what was the position and what course of action were they able to pursue.

In relation to the recommendation that in all future cases the Legal Services Team should be involved, Henry Gordon-Lennox had stated that it was already involved in all cases.

The Chairman said that in the case under discussion, the Scrutiny Committee had heard evidence that this was not the situation, and in other cases that assistance from the Legal Team was optional, and members were concerned that there may be many other similar cases. The officer who had dealt with this case had indicated that there may be many similar cases which could arise in future.

The Legal Advisor, Anita Williams, stated that a longer call-in period would impact on all decisions and not just those that were called in.

Cllr Stott confirmed that particularly in cases related to housing, delaying significant decisions could have a considerable impact, such as the loss of a potential house purchase.

The Chairman stated that Mark Williams had informed members at Cabinet that the correct procedure had not been followed before it came to members.

Cllr Wragg pointed out that there were a number of principles at issue. This case did not appear to have been handled correctly. She referred to the estimated value of the property involved and that the potential profit from its sale would have allowed the loan from EDDC to be repaid.

Cllr Bond asked Anita Williams to explain the legal position if they were told the amount was too small to fulfil the criteria for a call-in, but all Portfolio Holder decisions are circulated to members containing a suggestion that they can be called in, however, if the amounts involved are small then they cannot be called in and she considered this to be confusing and wasteful of everyone’s time and effort. Cllr Bond queried whether it would not have been better to have made the decision and not informed anyone rather than be in the current situation.

Anita Williams outlined that the call-in was successful in terms of timing and procedure followed, but an exemption existed relating to the amount of money involved, and that in this case it was under a certain amount. She stated that it was the case that all Portfolio Holder decisions were published and that a number of those would not be capable of being called in because their values were under the exemption amount. She advised that if these decisions were not published there would be questions regarding the transparency of the processes used; she also stated that there is a standard template for Portfolio Holder reports and this contains a box regarding call in as standard.

Cllr Chapman wanted to know in cases where money was being waived, whether the Council had a limit on how much they would be prepared to waive, since even if they were low individual amounts, it would soon add up significantly.

Following further comments the Chairman asked the committee how it wanted to proceed on this issue.

RESOLVED;

1)    That the issue of Call-ins would be put onto the Scrutiny Committee Forward Plan and discussed in further detail at a meeting following the elections, with a view to re-presenting recommendations for changes to the process in future, and

2)    That the Scrutiny committee would request more information in relation to the waivering of money in cases where people were in situations of being asset rich but cash poor.