Agenda and minutes

Venue: Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, N22 8LE. View directions

Contact: Felicity Foley, Principal Committee Co-ordinator 

Items
No. Item

16.

FILMING AT MEETINGS

Please note this meeting may be filmed or recorded by the Council for live or subsequent broadcast via the Council’s internet site or by anyone attending the meeting using any communication method.  Although we ask members of the public recording, filming or reporting on the meeting not to include the public seating areas, members of the public attending the meeting should be aware that we cannot guarantee that they will not be filmed or recorded by others attending the meeting.  Members of the public participating in the meeting (e.g. making deputations, asking questions, making oral protests) should be aware that they are likely to be filmed, recorded or reported on.  By entering the meeting room and using the public seating area, you are consenting to being filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound recordings.

 

The Chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual, or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

Minutes:

The meeting was not filmed or recorded.

17.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Beacham, B Blake and Patterson.

18.

Urgent business

It being a special meeting of the Committee, under Part Four, Section B, Paragraph 17, of the Council’s Constitution, no other business shall be considered at the meeting.

Minutes:

None.

19.

Declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

 

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

 

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’ Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

 

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct

Minutes:

None.

20.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 114 KB

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 6 July 2017.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 6 July 2017 be approved as a correct record.

21.

Draft 2017 Planning Protocol pdf icon PDF 8 MB

Minutes:

Ben Burgerman, Lawyer, addressed the points raised in the minutes of the meeting held on 6 July 2017 and responded to further questions from the Committee.  NOTED:

 

-       The Members’ Code of Conduct states that any Member with a prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interest must withdraw from the meeting, so therefore if any of the Committee members expressed one of these interests then they would be required to withdraw from the meeting for that item in accordance with the relevant parts of the Members’ Code of Conduct and Planning Protocol. This was supported by case law guidance. Members of the sub-committee who withdrew from the meeting could if they wished still follow the discussion online.

-       In regard to the point raised by some Members in relation to a Cabinet Member addressing the committee when their portfolio covered planning and / or regeneration, and the public perception of a conflict of interest, Ben advised that the Member would still be bound by the Members’ Code of Conduct and so would be able to address the Committee, as any Member was entitled to do, in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct and Planning Protocol e.g. unless they had a disclosable pecuniary interest.  All Planning decisions would be made by Members of the Planning Committee, and not the Cabinet Member regardless of whether the Cabinet Member had made representations.

-       Paragraph 2.21 was not an exhaustive list of the criteria to determine a request that an application be referred to the sub-committee. The first bullet point in the paragraph was just one of several criteria, that set guidelines for the decision maker, who would assess the context and acting reasonably would then apply them accordingly.

-       Paragraph 5.48, third sentence – to remove “or if not that the divergence is made clear” from the end of the sentence.

-       Paragraph 10.10 – not all circumstances would require a Member to withdraw from the room, this would only apply if the Member had declared a prejudicial or pecuniary interest.

-       Paragraph 10.6 – references to ‘12pm’ should be removed and replaced with 12:00.

-       Paragraph 5.59 – it was suggested that the references to meeting times and dates be removed.

-       Paragraph 10.13 – this should be reworded to remove the reference to ‘act jointly to limit themselves…’ and replace with wording along the lines of ‘it is the expected that questions shall be for 30 minutes’.

 

The Chair thanked all for their comments and advised that the next steps would be that the protocol would be discussed at the next Standards Committee meeting and then adopted by Full Council for inclusion within the Council’s Constitution.

 

 

22.

Dates of future meetings

9 October 2017

Minutes:

9 October 2017.