Transcript

Transcript

what is national time at the moment, but we'll work off of that. So, morning, everyone, welcome to the special meeting of the Order and Governance Committee on Monday, the 29th of April, 2024. Just to say that I'm not aware that the fire alarm signal has gone off yet, and whether or not that's because we're going to hear a delayed test signal later today. But in any case, if we do hear that signal, we must of course treat it as a real alarm. Leave this room by the door's opposite, me down the back stairs out to the back. Don't return into the building until somebody tells you, somebody officially tells you that you may do so. So, first up, just to remind everybody, of course, these meetings are recorded and broadcast. So, I'm looking forward to a very calm and considered debate this morning on the various items. And first of all, just to record apologies, I have been sent to apologies from Councillor Luceini. She's not able to make this morning. And the chief executive does intend to join us this morning, but she has alerted me to an urgent matter this morning. That means she cannot attend as of this time, but she should be making every effort to get here. Any other apologies? Do we know if Councillor Redgerup will be coming along? Yes. And Councillor Churchill, do we? She is expecting, right? It's always a potential for difficulties on our raids, of course. So item two is the minutes of our previous meeting. I'll move from the chair that we confirm those as a true record of the minutes of the meeting held on 18th of March 2024. Any amendments first to that before seconded, otherwise, are we in agreement on that? Pick a show of hands very much and sign them. She's at the bottom, isn't it? Yeah, that's it. I should remember that by now. Thank you, guys. Item three is to invite Councillor CASSIDY to declare any interest they might have in the matters on the agenda. Councillor JOHNSTON. I know that a question has been raised with the monitoring officer, and I believe with Francis Fernandez, who is online, I note, regarding dispensations ahead of the meeting on Wednesday, specifically related to this item. I'm not sure what the answer is to that. So whether we have to declare interest on particularly pecuniary interest related to potential changes of governance and the impact that would or would not fall on us as individuals, I'm not aware, but I would suggest that you might wish to see if Francis would like to enlighten us on that point ahead of Wednesday, I know, but it pertains to this meeting as well. Certainly. Thank you, Councillor JOHNSTON. Mr Fernandez, can you give us a call for you? Thank you, Chair. Can members hear me? Yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you. I did provide some advice. Hopefully I've sent the send button, Councillor JOHNSTON, but I'll double check. But I did provide some advice on this, and my general view is that there is no interest to declare at this moment, because I think the impact of any remuneration scheme, with my understanding of the queries that certain members might make decisions which may impact on them personally. So they might hold a cabinet position, or they might hold another position. And if the governance system changes, then that might impact on them. And my general advice was that there is no pecuniary interest or a personal interest at this stage. If there is one, it will be at the full council meeting when the remuneration scheme is actually considered. And in that case, there is a dispensation in place already. So at the moment, my advice is no concern about any decorations of interest at this meeting. And at the full council meeting, it will be resolved, but we will double check for the meeting itself and advise members accordingly. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hernandez for that. If I summarize, there's nothing for us today, and that there is a dispensation, if I understood what Mr. Hernandez has said, in place already regarding to any discussion that may be had on that is to be had a full council. So I think I've captured what he said, just Councillor Quack. Does that include membership of the working group? Because I feel one should declare that one has been involved in the working group that develops the proposals. It's not prejudicial, but I think it's declarable. Mr. Fernandez, do you feel this? Yes. Yes, Chair. I mean, there would be no harm in members declaring a personal interest in having set on the working group. I personally don't think it's necessary, but for Belt and Brace's members feel comfortable with that, then that's fine, but it's certainly not a pecuniary interest. I'm a strong believer in Belt and Brace's so that will declare that interest as a member of the working group. Councillor Jarmon. Likewise, therefore, I declare that I'm also a member of the working group and of the subgroup dealing with looking at alternate models. Anything else from colleagues to declare or otherwise? No, in which case item four is public question time. I've been advised there are no written questions. There is no member of the public present in the gallery. So we can now move on to item five, which is the future governance report, which is the initial stimulant for this meeting today. Obviously, it has been a matter of significant discussion for some months now, since it was first moved by Councillor Brody, I think almost a year ago. I'm hoping of course that all members, you've read the report carefully. It's not for us to make a decision even less necessary just even to recommend to full council anything in terms of the decision that full council might make. That is for full council, but I would ask that we look carefully to say are the reports and the appendices before us complete enough, are they sufficiently evidenced, particularly in terms of around advantages and disadvantages of various systems and also do they have a proper discussion of the risks related to any particular governance scenario, its implementation and therefore of the mitigations that would need to be in place for that. So I'm hoping that we all focus our discussion around that. In other words, is the paper fit for its purpose? So I see that Councillor Brody is online. It's an officer report though, so just first check if any officer was intending to introduce it, perhaps Ms Shand might want to say a few words beforehand. Sorry, we've got the mute button as always. Now I hadn't intended to say anything particular Chair. I mean, as you rightly say, it is an officer report and the reasons for doing so is to obviously make sure that members have all the information in front of them that is considered necessary to help you determine the decision going forwards. Obviously happy to try and answer any queries that you may have with regards to the content, but clearly from the point of view it being within the Audit and Governance Committee, as you rightly say, it's about that check and balance in terms of, you know, have the risks and issues being duly considered in order to provide for Council with the best opportunity to make its final decision. Thank you for that and colleagues, if you don't mind, if Councillor Brody wishes to, as he has been Chair of the future governance group if he might want to comment ahead of our discussion. Councillor Brody. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly, I think the report will provide every member of this Council with all the information that they require to make a decision on Wednesday evening at the Extraordinary Thought Council. In my lunchtime, I will have with Democratic Services a motion to facilitate a decision to be made from the Chief Executive's report. That should be with all members. Early afternoon, I would imagine. That would go by Mr Wiggins or things in the corner there. That motion will provide a suggestion of the implementation date of a change to a governance system if the Council chooses to do so and will stick with what the decisions of the working group have been so far. Once that motion is tabled, I anticipate there will be potentially amendments regarding the implementation date and certainly regarding whether a future leader of the Council should chair the planned policy resources and finance committee. There may be other amendments, but I would certainly anticipate that for those two areas which are perhaps the most controversial. But other than that, Councillor Garrett, I don't think there's anything I've got too hard. Rightly, this is a significant decision to be debated democratically at Extraordinary Thought Council and I would assert very strongly that the report covers everything that members will require to have before them for Wednesday evening. Finally, just to thank the officers who have been involved in this. Obviously, you've heard from Claire Shanday, Francis Ferdinandus has been very involved in this as well and the Chief Executive has been very supportive throughout this process. It is a year in May's annual meeting. Since I first brought this subject, we've been accused of rushing this. I don't think we have, but a decision will be made on Wednesday night. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor MURPHY for that. And I'd also echo with your comments about the hard work that that officers have put into working this up to get to this position. I prayed in the phrase of the former leader of the Council of working at Pace, but this is very much a pace that is more in line with Usain Bolt than with others, I guess, but certainly we have very comprehensive papers before us. So, having in mind those kind of overarching things to consider, I'll open it up to asking questions. But first, I'm aware that, Councillor REDRUP, you're welcome. I should invite you to declare any interest if you have any. You don't have to be looking. Not boring at all. Okay, colleagues, can you, Councillor QUICK, I think you were first to indicate? As one that's been involved in the working group for the last 12 months, and sort of very integrally involved in just that every meeting that's had, who come up with a framework, I think that the document that the officers have produced accurately reflects the framework that we come up with. And although I think it's a bit light on the disadvantages of putting it off for a year, I don't think it's worth editing it at this stage. I think it accurately does show that the intention of the working group. So, I endorse it. Thank you for that. Councillor CHURCHMOND, welcome. Your apologies are accepted, of course, I'll invite you to just declare any interest if you have any interest. I'm afraid that's outside the terms of reference of this committee, but do you have any interests to declare, Councillor CHURCHMOND? Do you have any interest to declare? Just make sure I've properly done with that. That's great. Thank you. So, other colleagues on the future government's paper. So, I think he has, he has indicated again, Councillor QUICK, did you want to follow, had you finished on your remarks? Had you finished with your remarks? Yes, I think it would be helpful, because we have had a number of all member briefings, which have been delivered by Clare and by the Chief Executive over the last week or so. If we were able to push the measures out somehow to all members that those are recorded and available online, the presentation is quite useful. And so is the dialogue and the questions that arose from them. But I'm aware that many of the sessions were rather poorly attended. And so, it's keen, I'm very, very keen that not only the paper, but everybody who arrives on Wednesday is as fully briefed as they can. So, I don't know if we have a remit to do that or away, again, I'm not sure, but I don't think we need a formal motion for it, but if there's a way to increase the participation in that debate ahead of Wednesday, I think that would be a good thing. So, Councillor CURTCHESON. Chris, I haven't been involved in the working group, so this is all, I've been read through a lot of paperwork this weekend and over the last week and noted the sort of expenditure, those items that I think the public will be quite interested in and seeing this part of this paper as a whole, and all the information. And that generally, it's thought that there is no one right system or wrong system. There's different systems work for different areas. And I feel like there's been quite a lot of money spent on maybe changing something for the sake of it, looking through the paperwork. And so, that was coming out, that maybe we hadn't investigated the hybrid system a little bit more and making use of the policy committees that we could have. So, I think all groups are involved in all our committees at the moment already. So, I was just sort of looking at the different options in that way. And I felt that there was obviously quite a lot of risks that came out of the risk matrix on there, a lot of red areas that I thought was quite worrying and that the disadvantages did kind of outweigh the advantages in my point of view. I know, perhaps the quirks have said the other way around. I did think that we needed to make sure we were doing it at the right pace. And I'm not sure Usain Bolt's pace was necessarily the best way to do it. So, that was my thoughts on the paper. So, I did feel like it gave me a lot of information and was extensive, but it did highlight those things for me. Thank you. Colleagues, any other comments or perhaps questions around this? I think it is important to note that we have several appendices before us. We have a covering report which I certainly from the chair believe properly covers all the available models of governance to us and discusses those effectively. We do then have an appendix upon a proposed committee structure. I think it is important to note that any proposed structure is always amenable as if it were adopted as things would evolve. Certainly, it was my experience that year on year councils would tweak everything from the name to the whole terms of reference of committees to make them the most effective that they could be for the public that they served. We have a paper on the financial implications. I think it is important to note that the preferred model for meetings does lead to a slightly greater potential spend than is currently spent on our democratic arrangements. But that would, of course, like anything which is an estimate, it can only ever be an estimate until we have to get to the year-end and assessment of that. I think it would be worth just making sure we have done proper justice to the risk appendix because although I am a strong supporter of the committee system, I also believe that we should do our job properly and make sure that we have just made sure that through this as a governance committee that we have made sure that we have given all the comments that we might make, particularly as any member of the public reading through on this would see a lot of red as Councillor CRIXIS has highlighted. Perhaps we could sort of go through in terms. Do we think that the covering report properly reflects all the available models that there is nothing. I am Councillor CRIXIS. You make some comments but nothing in life is risk-free. You have to sort of try to mitigate the risks. I think that the officers over the past 12 months have worked hard to mitigate the risks. We have used external consultants. There has been a lot of work gone into this. The difference is risk in terms of finance is minuscule and it is probably more than made up for by cutting out a couple of allowances because of the fewer chairman of committees rather than members of cabinet. So I don't see that there is any real issue there. My view is that this does adequately reflect the situation. It also identifies mitigation for the risks. To my mind, this paper is acceptable and should be submitted to full Council. I am quite happy to move that if you want. I am trying to get a bit more discussion but I know Councillor CRIX is the churchman. [ Pause ] Councillor CRIXIS.

Thank you. Looking at the risk matrix, I think you wanted to sort of dip a dive into some of those things. Some of the things that came out for me was looking at the finance extracts. I think the short timescale will mean that more money will be spent with extra support. I am reading a lot that this risk needs to be accepted and I am not sure that we should accept the risk without further information sometimes. It talks about that the short timescale is why we have identified the extra funding and if it was done over a longer period, perhaps that extra money wouldn't need to be spent on it and we could do it within the resources that we have over a year and that would seem like a more prudent option in my point of view from that. Looking at it from a public point of view, why we are spending more money on it to do it quickly, what would be the advantage of that and that is some of the things I have got out of that risk matrix. Thank you. I think it is really important given such a big decision that we do try to draw out some of those thoughts, albeit they may be more of a matter of the minutes than for any particular resolution. Certainly I have always paid great attention to the risk register when it normally comes through this committee. What I am looking for is mitigation what is the mitigation and it is worth noting that certainly under several cases it says this risk needs to be accepted. Now risks can be accepted. It is about accepting those risks actively knowing that you have accepted those risks rather. I guess what I would highlight and perhaps in any discussion on Wednesday I would highlight that if people should be actively and knowingly accepting risk. Certainly other person who can be quite a high risk appetite at times and other times are somewhat risk averse. Councillor Cricheson do you want to come back? I think we have to be looking at why we are taking that risk with our residents lives. Why would we do that? What are we really going to gain from it and I feel like perhaps there could have been ways of readjusting our council to work better together without having incurred these costs for them. Although the change of meetings that the whole committee system set up will only cost a few thousand more, the whole process has cost 30,000 plus so far as far as I can tell from this report. So we are looking at 50,000 to change to this and weighing up that with our residents needs I would say that there are better ways that we could have gone around this process. Councillor Bose, of course you can. The constitution allows. So for me, I look at the financial side of it and any business that I've ever run or been involved in, the longer things take and the more input it has, then there is a cost to that. Any work that we spend on the next year talking about this, we are paying offices time to actually discuss and work on it. So we have a report in front of us and I understand financial risk because I run a business, especially in this current climate, we understand what risk is. But I think that risk has to be balanced with how much offices no disrespect to offices at all. I think it will do a fantastic job. But if you are told you given an extra year to discuss something and work on it, you are going to spend another year discussing and work on it and that time isn't afraid. I think as part of the risk as well, we haven't seriously looked at how many of those positions who were ready to get an SRA, those positions won't be required as part of this system. I went through the SRA's the other day and could see all those costs of different chairs of scrutiny committees et cetera that will no longer be required. That's part of those two actually out balance already how much we have already spent to get to this point. That's quite clear when you look at it and balance it. So I think when I look at that risk register, I actually wouldn't rag rate it as high as it has been because I don't think the balance has been made of the things that we're not going to be spending out on to do it and how much discussion costs over a long period of time. It's just my personal opinion on it. Thank you for that Councillor. We should note of course the recommendations relating to Councillors allowances and remunerations are a matter for the independent remuneration panel. They may make a completely different decision from what we might consider to do but what I'm saying, what I'm just caveatting is we need to be aware that they could make other decisions and they may decide if we were to adopt this system to greatly enhance the allowance season in many ways. Councillor JOHNSTON. Thank you, Chair. I think it's useful to think about the longevity of the project over the last year and to reflect on the fact that the working group was itself politically proportionate and so all groups and on group members were able to be represented there which is very useful. Many of those discussions were quite exhaustive and indeed in some instances the matters were so debated and so talked out that the groups ran out of things to discuss and that was certainly the case with the group looking at alternative models that we got to a point where we could see no useful purpose in that group continuing. The other aspect to think here is that when the working group started to bring forward its conclusions, that those conclusions were initiated towards the end of last year and continue I believe with only one abstention and without any objections, so that broad level of support is to be commended that the members were able to look beyond individual issues and look forward to a better way of serving our community. For those who are able to look at the recordings of the all-member briefings in the last week, one of the issues that came out for that specifically is related to finance was that the cost within democratic services for servicing those meetings can be covered within the existing budget envelope. So I think that was mentioned at least twice, maybe three times, I forget now, I think I attended all the meetings and it's useful to know that that provision is accounted for, albeit that at this stage we are uncertain how many of those meetings will actually be needed. It's not a word, just died. Two dead ones so far today. So I think knowing that we have with that provision, knowing that there is still some speculation about that is important to know. The other thing I would emphasise is that this is far from the end of a process. This is a very significant step in the process, whether we take it or not. And if we do take that step to move to a committee system, there is already provisions made for other elements that will need to be considered in the next three and six months and will undoubtedly be brought forward to this committee and where they involve a constitution of change, of course, to the full council. So we're not imagining that this is the be all an end all that were the final version. We're foreseen that fine-tuning of that model and its evolution will still continue as indeed our constitution has over the last three years, where actually I've lost kind of how many times it has changed. But there have been quite a number of changes brought forward, including the representation on various groups and committees, which is updated quite regularly by the monitoring officer. So I think a great deal of work politically proportionately balanced. The financial issues and risks have been well considered. And I think this is a major step for the process is very worthy of consideration on Wednesday, and I've no doubt at all that it will continue to be refined going forward. Thank you for that, Councillor JOHNSTON and for everybody else. We've tried to push you into making sure that we have covered this appropriately before we make a recommendation to full council, which I think if I sort of like summarise what Councillor Quirk was suggesting is that this report is comprehensive enough with the proper discussion of the financial implications of moving to a different model of governance and with a proper and discussion of the level of risk and of the mitigations related to that. But probably more lengthily summarised than what you actually had proposed, Councillor Quirk. But did you capture my work? That would be great. So I'll move my words from the chair then, with your agreement Councillor Quirk, because you had to suggest that you would move something. Can I have a second on that? And just recognise, of course, that this is not saying anything about how any of us will be voting on Wednesday. So I don't remember the committee to feel that their feelings about the system's changes has proposed, should stop them from feeling without the paper is fit enough for its purpose. So on that basis, may we go to a vote on that? There's a fake that you share. That is unanimous. I know Ms. Tuckwell is going to make sure that that's communicated to our colleagues as swiftly as possible, at pace, dare I say, ahead of Wednesday's discussion. And thank you. And once again, can I just, another chief detective is in the room as well, reconfirm that I'm sure all of us are incredibly grateful to the officers who have worked so hard, including the external consultants, to bring this to this position and to have a report that is clearly fit the purpose for the debate on Wednesday, so thank you for that. If I can then move on to item six, the financial regulations. This may attend to an officer to briefly, Mr. Dahmer, you'll introduce this for us. The financial regulations from 2016 version. This is just generally housekeeping around format job titles, for example. Secondly, the second step is an alternative version of the regulations is presented, should the governance model change. This alternative version purely changes references from cabinet to policy finance and resources committee is recommended to ensure business continuity. Thank you. Thank you for that. There is one typo in both of the reports, which I only picked up just over the weekend. It's the reference to HMRC. It is now his Majesty's revenue and customs, of course, since the passing of our late Majesty. But I hate always to highlight typos, I would have highlighted it beforehand on that. But otherwise, on the substantive of the proposed regulations that brought before us comments from my colleagues. Councillor Quack. The current set for the substantive looks appropriate. The transfer to the committee system, if that happens, looks appropriate. A couple of general comments. I'm not suggesting you have to change it now, but things to think about. The first is, I think, where we are firing money across with either within a division or between sectors of the Council, I think they should be seen as major decisions and actually notified to all Councillors. We've been suffering a lack of transparency over the last few years. I think we need to put transparency back in. If we're taking a billion pounds from here and putting it there, we should admit that we're doing it. We shouldn't hide it. The second thing is, it seems to me to be a little bit light on member scrutiny of the management accounts. We're getting reports back, but we're not getting access to the real management accounts. I think that's something that we at some stage should be thinking about if she wants this. If members are responsible for holding officers to account, you need to have the information that you can hold them to account to, and you don't need that to be edited, you need to be transparent. I think that's something not for today, but something to think about in the future. That's my couple of thoughts. Thank you for those comments. Other colleagues? Councillor CHECHERMAN. [inaudible] [inaudible] Thank you for that. Sorry, could I get some clarity on that? Not knowing. Not knowing the Internet of the Finance. Are we hiding things and what sort of isn't transparent? I wasn't aware that there were these issues that we couldn't get that information if required from our finance team. Before I invite an officer to comment on that, if one looks at, I'm currently looking at appendix 2, 4.6.1, there is a discussion of transparency data, the publication of all council financial transactions and whatever. The word transparency definitely figures within these regulations. We previously had some discussions around the constraints that that strategy places us on. Is there an officer who wishes to kind of pick this up possibly the section of my 5.1 officer would like to give some thoughts on transparency of financial data and then what has to be worked with it? Yeah, thank you, Chair. There's obviously a number of layers to this and in the first instance, in terms of the information that we report, as you mentioned, Chair, we report publicly online all of the council's transactions. So there's complete transparency of spend and at a very detailed level at this stage. If I interpret what Councillor Quirk has said, he's particularly interested in where money is moved from one service area to another service area. We do have some rules at the moment that set out how that procedure must work. I think that councils have, council's budgeting process and budget management processes have evolved over time. Historically, people used to view budgets as a very static type of financial regime where the budget was approved in February of the year and it didn't change. The reality now in terms of managing services is that budgets change all the time. They change over time, but within the overall envelope that full council have set. So there is relative freedom to move money around the budget, but the purpose of that is financial management of the budget to ensure that the council is managing its finances, where there are budget pressures that members, maybe cabinet members in the current instance or maybe officers are able to move money flexibly to ensure that where there are pressures, those pressures can be met and you will recognise that most of our pressures are in our statutory services at the moment. There would be adults in children's social care. That might mean compromises to discretionary services. So it's a fluid and dynamic situation now, not the same as it was historically, but that's not to say that there's not transparency. There's transparency, obviously in the expenditures I've mentioned, but also in terms of the movement of budgets, which are reported through the QPMR process as well. It's worthy of discussion. I accept that and I think there is a discussion to add, but as far as I'm concerned, the transparency is there if it's asked for. Thank you for that. Councillor JOHNSTON, was that an indication? Yeah, so I'd agree with what Ms. Ward has just said. It seems inevitable that that fluidity is likely to be amplified going forward, certainly for the foreseeable future. The question is always what information we release and when we release it. And of course, there is a need for information to be timely. And I think many members have mentioned the fact that much of the information that they are able to get access to is rather out of date, and so the timeliness of information will always remain an issue. I think it's likely that the, whilst those budget envelopes overall might remain consistent because they are defined in a budgetary process, that there will be contention about use of those budgetary resources and the transfer between priorities on a continual basis. And I would see, moving forward, that the individual committees might well wish to reprioritise elements from their budget allocations, but that the Policy Resource and Finance Committee would have to serve as the ultimate arbiter, because at the end of the day, the overall level of the financial resources we have is constrained. We have a second issue would always be that we have a statutory responsibilities to fulfil, and the third issue would be policy prioritisation after that point. So there does need to be an arbitering mechanism for those transfers in the future. Thank you. Just a quick. I totally agree with what Chris Ward is saying in terms of moving money around. There's no objection to the fact that money is via the course. The fact that there's a difference between data and information. The information can be tucked away hidden online, or you can be open about it and tell people. The people who are setting the budget should know when the budget they have set is being significantly altered. I mean, you're not talking about a little bit here and there, but if you're moving a medium pound of costs into either social care, the council should be aware of that, and be aware of where it's coming from, and what the implications of that are, what the consequences are. That's what we're meant to be holding people to account for. How can we do it? The allowances for councilors do not provide use with having a little independent person go into the books, certain accounts, and go through the books finding things they need to come to you. And as I said before, I don't think it's for today, but I think it is something that we could would usefully look at in the future about how that information is actually sent out to the members. Thank you. And of course, to some extent, the nuance of that is whatever happens on Wednesday, there are two different pathways from that as well. But I think that's been well heard, and certainly something we would just quickly want to take on board. Whatever happens from Wednesday, rolling out to ensure that members are satisfied, there is a proper balance between efficient officer day-to-day delivery within budget and our knowledge as the people most accountable, the people accountable for the expenditure. So if I've summarized that sort of correctly, colleagues, are you happy for me then to move us to the recommendations that before us about adopting these regulations, or did you want to explore something a little more? Councillor Jahn. I think it's worth remembering that under that committee system, there are no delegated decisions to individual members, and so individual members will not be making those unilateral decisions. I think what Councillor Quirk emphasized in terms of budgetary movements is very pertinent. For example, if we were using public health money to bolster funds needed to balance leisure centres, I'll pick one of the very long list of potential items, then I believe that that should be disclosed so that people are aware of A, that there is a deficiency within the leisure centre environment, and B, how that deficiency is actually being managed. So those would seem to be fairly simple things to disclose, well known, but should not be hidden simply by saying we're covering the deficit in one way or another. It should be specifically how and where the source of those funds are from. I'm sure that's keenly noted, Councillor, but in terms of for today, are you content for me to move those recommendations or your further comment on regulations first? Just again, thank you, Chair. I wasn't aware that that information wasn't out there in general, because I thought there was information put out there to say where areas that needed extra money, the budgets were there if we wanted to see them. So I wasn't quite sure what we were. The changes are more explanation on why this was needed. It would be good. I think Councillor Quirk has articulated well that it would be useful for us as members to draw our attention to what the principals in these regulations and how they're delivered and whether or not as members we are comfortable. And I think we should be doing that on a regular basis, just to ensure that people who are accountable in the entry develop box on these matters. That's not in any way, I want to reassure officers that any criticism of them, they deliver decisions quite rightly for the effective management of this Council and its services. But I think I'm going to take it that I may move those recommendations of the ones that we do definitely need to consider, which are that the Committee approves the financial regulations detailed in Appendix 1 and that the Committee approves the alternative financial regulations detailed in Appendix 2 to be used should the Council Government's model change. You can tell with those. Thank you, Councillor Quirk. Can I take a vote on those? Those are favour please show. That is unanimous. Thank you. Not much of such a content in our water so I'm going to try and breathe it. The item 7, we move on to that. This is following on from our discussion at our previous meeting around some concerns that were raised. The last meeting, there have been some discussions since then. I've been very grateful to Councillor JOHNSTON and this Committee who had a discussion with myself and the Chief Executive and others on Friday on a way to properly explore this issue. But I will invite Councillor JOHNSTON because you haven't very much led on this if there's anything you wish to comment upon at this stage or do you think we can move to where we got to on Friday? I think we can move fairly quickly to where we got to on Friday. I think we will know the genesis of this from our last meeting and from the corporate scrutiny meeting before that and the corporate scrutiny before that and I think we are very keen to draw this to a conclusion at the earliest opportunity. To that end, we had prepared a briefing paper which is not in the pack. It was previously reviewed by members of corporate scrutiny and members of this Committee and others. But in terms of trying to be constructive and go forwards, what we are proposing now and this was agreed with the Chief Executive last week subject to the agreement of this Committee that we would commission a report on the constitutional provisions for alternate budgets and the delivery of same in the 2024-25 budget process. I believe that there is adequate material on this, both from what individual members have produced and from what external sources have already produced and with the agreement of the Chief Executive, it was noted that that would be conducted by an independent professional to bring a report back, I would suggest within 28 days to this Committee. It seems a reasonable time frame. We don't want to draw this out longer than we need to and I think we are extraordinarily keen to limit the definition of that work. So we have circulated over the weekend and thank you Chair for your additions to that this morning, some draft questions that were formed on the basis of that report. We are trying to bound those and make it concise as possible and I would suggest that we don't try to debate those individual items at length today but we will refine them very quickly today or tomorrow and submit them to the Chief Executive to be passed for that report. I would though ask that the report and the report process is conducted with the involvement of those members who have been deeply involved in this matter so far so that balance is seen to be done within that process. Thank you for that. Can I invite the Chief Executive to make any comments? Thank you Chair. Nothing further other than to say subject to the agreement or otherwise that this Committee will move that forward. So one thing I think the time frame might be a little tight in terms of procuring and that somebody being able to take that forwards obviously a 28 day timetable would lead to a further extraordinary meeting of this Committee at some point. Our next meeting formally is in July I believe. Again I think it would be helpful to that it be done as quickly but also as comprehensively as possible. I think on a matter like this I'm always reminded from the days when I worked with but not as a statistician. You can either have the report quickly or you can have the report comprehensively but you can't have both and I'd rather have a comprehensive report that gets into this. I'm sure Councillor JOHNSTON you would as well without at the same time there being no unnecessary sort of like hold up on these things and I'm sure our discussions on Friday were very much in line with that. Could I suggest that in terms of resolution from this Committee I'm just going to suggest in words at the moment that this Committee requests that the chief executive commissions a report on the statutory responsibilities for preparing a budget including the rights for any group or individual Councillor to prepare an alternative budget and ask whether or not they are adequately reflected in the constitution with particular consideration being given to if and how this was delivered in the 2024-25 budget setting process does that capture the thrust of the report that we're seeking to commission. Obviously their members with a particular concern and interest can feed into that. Although it is from one or maybe two groups on this Council I hope that all groups on this Council and those who are not in a group would want to import into that because of all the things that we do on a Council that that's probably the biggest decision isn't it? Absolutely the setting of a budget that would be to do it properly and effectively. Councillor JOHNSTON then I will take a Council Master. So I think that does encapsulate it. I think we might wish to in the spirit of transparency and openness ensure a number of things for example that all correspondence with that external consultant is copied to those members who have been involved in this to date and that all of their correspondence with the external consultant is likewise copied to the officers involved in this to date. I think that would be very fair and balanced on all sides if indeed the four week timescale because I do think we are trying to bound this process very precisely and therefore articulate the questions very carefully. If that cannot be done in four weeks then perhaps what we could aim for is a draft initial findings within four weeks and a final report no later than eight weeks. Thank you. Councillor MOSTA. Thank you. Mine merely is a point that can we ensure that when we're looking at this stuff that future frustrations don't happen again that we know we've all gone through the budget process you know we'll lose a few hours of our lives sat there watching everybody debate about it but then to have the frustration of those budget amendments being accepted and then completely ignored should not happen in the future. It really is pointless you know I've read all the financial papers there and you know section three about budget setting you know we are signing up today to a set of guidelines and then not actually adhering to them you know I've got numbers of examples where changes and amendments to the budget was married but then not adhered to so we don't want to see that happen in future and maybe one of the reasons I want to change from a cabinet system that a committee system wouldn't allow that to happen that democracy would be allowed and anything that was voted for you know properly in full council would actually be carried out. Thank you for that colleagues any other comments otherwise I could leave those words if if let's talk about you you've captured those words and that I set out as a move. Councillor Quirk he is he's seconding can I take a vote on that those in favor of those please share thank you very much see all of us will liaise with the chief executive on the delivery of that and and hopefully that that bounding has happened that we can bring closure to this this matter and do so in a very constructive and positive way that inform particularly whether this council continues with the cabinet arrangement or moves to some other model of governance as as of Wednesday and well as of whatever full council it might then resolve and the council might resolve but thank you for that. Final item is members question time and any questions from members there are none that have been pre-submitted so otherwise I will close the meeting and thank every oh you leaped in that just thank you. Can I ask that we reaffirm I think which some of these have been discussed to corporate scrutiny I believe here before which is that all members should be informed of all delegated decisions at this at the present time I'm aware that a number have been made which I know the list is on the website it's somewhat difficult to find at times and in fact typing in delegated decisions still takes us to the old website not the new one so it's not always very helpful but that all member delegated decisions are communicated to all members. That's a question for me is there a officer who can help at this stage but that's to keep accepting. Thank you chair my understanding of the way the modgov system works is that as soon as the delegated decision is advertised all members receive a copy of that decision and then there's a follow-up notification that is sent out to all members as soon as the decision is made and then equally I would need to check this but I'm fairly sure that every time the forward plan is changed which will put new delegated decisions on there is notification that goes to all members but if for some reason that isn't happening then please let me know and I can check if there are any technical term glitches that we need to resolve. Councillor CRIES and did you have a just falling off in that I believe we were notified I didn't think I'm not quite sure where Chris's question is coming from so I'm a bit worried if we're not notified because I think there may be a case for outside of this meeting Councillor JARM and the Chief Executive just having a discussion about certainly it's my experience is that the modgov system does indeed alert us to a lot of things including delegate decisions about to be made et cetera et cetera but if Councillor JUMB, if you can liaise with the Chief Executive and maybe report back to colleagues. I can perhaps help help a little bit. Some of the delegated decisions have a backdated timeline in them which in some cases can be quite lengthy and so getting the decision when it's published is very different to getting the decision when it's made and in one case recently there was a three-month gap I believe between when the decision was made and when it was published and all members got it when it was published that did not get it when it was made so the issue there is well one way of rectifying that would be to make sure that all delegated decisions cannot be backdated more than seven days for example and therefore everybody would get due and timely notice of that which would be very satisfactory. The other one is to make sure that members get the notification when the decision is made and not when it is published but I agree with your sentiment and we can leave that to the Chief Executive to resolve. Thank you for any other member questions otherwise I'll make a second attempt at closing meeting. Thank you all for your attendance. Thank you for those who see me through this year subject to what may happen over the coming four councils. I may see you in one way or another on this committee afterwards but I think it's been an enjoyable year to be again in the chair and I hope I've served you well but I'll close the meeting at that point. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]