Wirral’s councillors will tonight discuss changes to Council meetings, call ins and how decisions are made

                                                                      

Wirral Council’s Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee will discuss proposals tonight to change the way Wirral Council makes decisions.

If these proposals are agreed by councillors, then in future unless objections to traffic regulation orders reach a threshold of fifteen objections or a petition of twenty-five or more different households, then it won’t be discussed at a public meeting of the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel. However ward councillors for the area that the proposed traffic regulation order relates to, will be able to request that the matter is decided by councillors even if the number of objections don’t reach the threshold. If the objections don’t reach the new threshold and a ward councillor doesn’t ask that councillors on the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel make a recommendation on it, then the decision will instead be made by the Head of Service for Environment and Regulation after consulting with the Cabinet Member for Highways.

Changes are proposed to the way meetings to decide on call-ins of decisions are dealt with. Instead of a committee of fifteen councillors deciding on call-ins, there will be a panel of nine councillors (5 Labour councillors, 3 Conservative councillors and 1 Lib Dem councillor). An earlier start time of 4.00 pm for call in meetings is suggested. Adjournments will only be allowed for seven working days and if this is not possible the call-in will be re-heard from the beginning.

Proposals affecting Council meetings are also on the agenda. The start time will be brought forward to 6.00 pm and the guillotine put back to 9.15 pm. The time for questions to councillors who are chairs of committees or on the Cabinet will be reduced from an hour and a half to thirty minutes. This is to allow more time during Council meetings for councillors to debate notices of motion. Further details on the changes and the reasons behind them (including some I haven’t mentioned here) can be found on Wirral Council’s website. If agreed tonight, the changes will be recommended for approval at the Council meeting on the 14th December 2015.

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