Agenda item

To agree the public minutes and summary of the meeting held on 17 November 2020.

The Committee considered the public minutes and summary of the meeting held virtually on 17 November 2020 and approved them as a correct record.

MATTERS ARISING

Anonymisation in Minutes – A Member commented that, whilst he felt that the draft minutes had been well written, they were also bound by the convention that Member contributions were to be anonymised. For the sake of transparency, the Member asked that they be amended so that Members asking questions or making comments were identified by name and that this was now done in the minutes of all future meetings of this Committee. The Member also proposed that the way that individual Members voted at this Committee were recorded within the minutes. He concluded by stating that, whilst he would normally provide the Chair to and Committee Clerk with advanced written warning of any proposed amendments the minutes, he had not done so on this occasion as he felt that there had been recent efforts within the Corporation to limit and control Member participation in meetings and he wanted to protest against this.

The Chair commented that he was not opposed to Members being named within the minutes but asked the Town Clerk to comment on the current convention and the background to this. The Town Clerk reported that, as already stated, it was convention across all Corporation Committees and Sub-Committees that Member contributions and votes were anonymised. If the Committee as a whole were supportive of changing this practice for these meetings this could be considered. The Town Clerk added that, at present, all meetings were broadcast live and were also recorded so that all Member contributions were visible and the way in which individual Members voted was fully transparent.

Another Member spoke to state that, as this Committee had a quasi-judicial role, she also felt that Members should be named in the minutes. She stated that she felt that this would be particularly helpful in terms of planning inquiries that could take place up to 2 years after an application had been considered. The Member went on to suggest that Members had previously been named in Planning and Transportation Committee minutes but that, as elections approached, certain Members had frequently spoken to have their names recorded and the practice had been dropped as a result. The Member concluded that she also intended to propose that contributions in the chat bar were appended to the minutes of all future meetings so that these were automatically visible to the public. The Chair responded by underlining that the chat bar should not be used for debate as this was very hard to monitor during a live meeting. Secondly, the Chair asked the Comptroller and City Solicitor to comment on the quasi-judicial nature or otherwise of this Committee. The Comptroller and City Solicitor explained that there was quite long-standing case law on this and the conclusion reached was that the role of a Planning Committee was not quasi-judicial.

The Deputy Chairman spoke to state that he did not have a strong view either way on this proposal but underlined that he was strongly opposed to Members not having reasonable notice of suggested changes to minutes such as these and not seemingly being asked to make policy on the hoof.

Another Member spoke to state that he had experience elsewhere where the practice had been to record the names of those who had raised points and that this had led to grandstanding. As a result, he had advised that the practice should be reversed and this had led to much smoother meetings. He added that he felt that this practice could become particularly problematic for this Committee as elections approached and given that its meetings were already very lengthy.

The Member had made the proposal spoke again to state that, as meetings were currently recorded for all to go back and review, the argument suggesting that the naming of Members in minutes would lead to grandstanding fell away. The naming of Members in the minutes would take the burden off of people needing to navigate lengthy recordings to try and determine who had said what. Finally, on the statement from the Comptroller and City Solicitor suggesting that the proceedings of this Committee were not quasi-judicial, the Member surmised that this was quoted from the Persimmon case which had been said in the context that Members may have political views however, the judge had also said that the role of Planning Committees was to assess applications impartially and, in that sense, they could be considered quasi-judicial.

Another Member stated that he did not feel strongly either way on this proposal but commented that transparency and openness should be primary in the minds of all in all of their work. However, he noted that any decision on this could have wider ramifications across the Corporation and that Officers should therefore be asked to bring forward a paper on this proposal outlining the arguments for and against this alongside their own suggestions and thoughts.

Another Member commented that, as a point of principal, she had no objection to Members being named within minutes. She went on to comment that not all Members were offered the opportunity to speak at meetings as had been demonstrated at the last meeting of this Committee when a motion was brought to bring debate to a close. In this instance, the Member had taken the opportunity to include her comment within the chat box and she felt that this was appropriate in the circumstances. 

The Town Clerk reiterated that the naming of Members in minutes went against the house style that had long since been set down by the Policy and Resources Committee and that, at the very least, any decision here would require a resolution back to this Committee. The Town Clerk added that, whilst it was common for Members to express differences of opinion, this would also go against the ethos of Committee based decision making. At present, if individual Members wished for their objection/an abstention to be recorded by name they were able to do so but it was not suggested that this equate to a ‘he said’ ‘she said’, verbatim record of the meeting.

A Member spoke again to suggest that a case should be put to the Policy and Resources Committee to amend the convention for this Committee, particularly around the recording of the way that individual Members voted. The Member stated that she believed that the majority of councils in England did record this information in their minutes. Another Member asked that this fact and the practice elsewhere also be checked to help inform the Committee’s decision.

The Chair noted that the Committee made formal resolutions on matters and that, as such, they spoke with one voice. Having said that, he went on to request that Officers bring back a paper on this matter to a future meeting of the Committee so that an informed decision could be made.

150 Aldersgate Street (pages 5-21) – A Member stated that the Chair had already received prior notice of this point in an email issued to him by 8 Members of this Committee on 24 November 2020. He asked the Chair to explain why he had not exercised his discretion under Standing Order No. 37 (3) to disallow the Motion to stop the debate on the application on the grounds that it was premature.

Report of Action Taken (page 26) – The same Member questioned how the proposal that the Chair and Deputy Chairman take more decisions under urgency procedures to help reduce the length of committee meetings would not be an abuse of the procedure that exists to deal with urgent matters that could not await the next scheduled meeting. He also questioned how merely reporting matters decided by the Chair and Deputy Chairman respected the authority delegated to this Committee by the Court to make these decisions.

The Chair undertook to respond to both of these queries in writing in due course.