Agenda

To elect a chair of Council for the municipal year 2024/25

To appoint a vice-chair of Council for the municipal year 2024/25.

To record apologies for absence. 

To adopt and sign as a correct record the Council minutes of the meeting held on 22 February 2024. 

To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests, other registrable interests and non-registrable interests or any conflicts of interest in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting. 

To receive notification of any matters which the chair determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chair. 

At the Joint Audit and Governance Committee meeting on the 15 April 2024, the committee recommended that Council adopt the revised local code of corporate governance and include it in the council’s constitution. The report considered by the committee is attached.

The draft minutes of the committee meeting are set out below:

“The committee received the code of corporate governance report, presented by the head of finance. He highlighted that the annual governance statements were based on the local code of good governance and that the version adopted by the councils was outdated and needed revising. The head of finance highlighted that the draft code had incorporated the latest Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy guidance, had been through the Constitution Task Review Group, and was suggested to be recommend to full council meetings for adoption and inclusion in the constitution.

In response to a question about what members could do if they believed that the councils were not compliant with the code, the head of finance indicated that they should direct these concerns in the first instance to the councils’ monitoring officer.

Overall, members welcomed the update and agreed that the revised code should be adopted by the councils”.

RECOMMENDATION: That Council adopts the revised local code of corporate governance for inclusion in the council’s constitution.

To consider the report of the head of legal and democratic on the appointment to those committees required to be politically balanced together with the Climate and Ecological Emergencies Advisory Committee, Licensing Acts Committee, Community Grants Panel and joint committees and panels attached. 

1.       To receive the report of the leader of the council.

2.       Special Urgency Decision

The council’s constitution stipulates that a Cabinet or Cabinet member decision taken as a matter of special urgency must be reported to the next available meeting of the Council, together with the reasons for urgency.

Council is requested to note the details of the following urgent decision.

Storm Henk Flood Grants

On 26 February 2024, Councillor Pieter-Paul Barker, Cabinet member for Finance and Property, took a decision to participate in the government funded schemes to provide financial compensation to households and businesses adversely affected by flooding impacts from Storm Henk, between 2 and 12 January 2024.

Agreement of the chair of the Scrutiny Committee was obtained that the required decision was urgent and could not be unreasonably deferred.                

Details of the decision and the reasons for urgency are available here.