Issue - meetings

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business. (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with at item 17 below).

The Chair advised that there were no items of urgent business but, as regards the items on the Agenda, the Chair informed the meeting that on 22 March, on behalf of the Chair, the Committee Services Manager- Clifford Hart informed all the members of this committee by email that, following the Chair’s review of the large number of items on the Agenda for the meeting (because two items were not presented to the Chair before at the agenda planning meeting) to be considered on 25^th March 2010, it was the Chair’s intention to defer consideration of voluminous items 10 (Partnership Working) and 11 (Leaseholder Charges) to the first meeting of the Committee in 2010/11, in order to have time to consider the remaining items on the agenda including members questioning the (a) Cabinet Member & Director of Children and Young People Services (agenda item 8), (b) Assistant Chief Executive Policy & Performance (agenda item 9) & (c) the Acting Joint Director of Public Health (agenda item 14). The Chair commented that no member of the Audit Committee before this meeting had requested these items for inclusion at this meeting.

Councillor Dobbie strongly argued that he had concerns at the Leaseholder Charges report being deferred given a number of issues that had been raised by Leaseholders within his ward and that there needed to be a discussion and comment in respect of the report’s findings.

The Chair responded that following the circulation of the agenda, on consideration of the volume of business, following his seeking of advice from the Committee Manager Mr Hart, he had advised the Committee via the Committee Manager that items 10 and 11 be deferred to the next meeting of the Committee due to the high number of items to be considered on the agenda. Given the concerns expressed during discussion of agenda items at the last meeting and the need for officers to be present at this meeting to discuss 3 particular items – in order to allow for a full discussion of those items it was prudent to defer consideration of the Leaseholder Charges and Partnership Working reports.

The Chair commented that it was at his discretion to consider deferring both items, and on advice of the Committee Manager, he had confirmed to the Committee the decision to defer these 2 items.  However, dependent on how the meeting progressed he would reconsider this discretion during the proceedings and, if possible, consider the Leaseholder Charges report if time allowed. At this point, the Chair also drew to the attention of members that because of the large agenda at the February meeting a number of  items were deferred to this meeting and, as this was the last meeting of the municipal year, personally he did not want to defer the usual items.

Members noted the discretion of the Chair.

Councillor Aitken, in concurring with Councillor Dobbie’s expressed comments, also stated that in his view the Committee should consider the Leaseholder Charges report given the concerns of a number  ...  view the full minutes text for item 161