Issue - meetings

Report of the Head of Legal and Governance (Monitoring Officer).  To be introduced by the Leader of the Council.

The Leader introduced the report which informed Cabinet about issues relevant to the use of investigatory powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000. 

RESOLVED

1.            To note the use of RIPA by the Council;

2.            To delegates authority for the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) to make inconsequential updates to the policies. This is for amendments which will not affect the Council’s principals and approach to surveillance. Should anything in relation to overall process and policy change, it should still go to Cabinet for approval.

Reasons for decision

The RIPA codes of practice state that members should review the Council’s use of investigatory powers at least annually. Therefore, although the powers under RIPA have been used sparsely in recent years, it is nevertheless important for members to be aware of the extent of usage.

Currently, any change to the policies would have to go before Cabinet for approval. This proposal will provide flexibility and enable trivial and minor changes to the policies quickly and easily to ensure that the policies are up to date and accurately reflect the Council structure and job titles.

Alternative options considered

In relation to bringing information on usage of the powers, if the Council’s use of investigatory powers was not noted, the Council would not be complying with the codes of practice and so this alternative has not been considered.

Continue to take policies to Cabinet for approval, but it is not the preferred option as policies are then not always update in a timely manner and they need to be slotted in to the hard-pressed Cabinet schedule.