Agenda item

Motions

Meeting of Council, Tuesday, 16th July, 2019 6.00 pm (Item 22.)

Motions Process:

No speeches may be made after the mover has moved a proposal and explained the purpose of it until the motion has been seconded.

When seconding a motion or amendment, a councillor may reserve their speech until later in the debate.

Speeches must be directed to the motion under discussion or to a personal explanation or point of order. No speech may exceed five minutes without the consent of the Chairman.

A councillor who has spoken on a motion may not speak again whilst it is the subject of debate, except:

(a) To speak once on an amendment moved by another councillor;

(b) To move a further amendment if the motion has been amended since he/she last spoke;

(c) If his/her first speech was on an amendment moved by another councillor, to speak on the main issue (whether or not the amendment on which he/she spoke was carried);

(d) In exercise of a right of reply (see Rule 15.9 of the Constitution);

(e) On a point of order (see Rule 15.12 of the Constitution); and

(f) By way of personal explanation (see Rule 15.13 of the Constitution).

For amendments, please refer to Rule 15.6 of the Constitution.

There have been two motions submitted for consideration:

11.1 Proposed by Councillors Duckett, Franks Jordan, John McCartney, Mary McCartney, Packham and Steve Shaw-Wright.

“That this Full Council agrees that Selby District Council should move from an Executive Structure to a modern Committee based structure that recognises the primacy of the Full Council and in which every elected Councillor plays a full and meaningful part in the Council decision making process.

That a Working Party under the leadership of Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, working with senior officers, is tasked with putting forward recommendations to this Full Council that enable the changes to occur as soon as possible.”

11.2 Proposed by Councillors Jordan, John McCartney, Mary McCartney, Packham and Steve Shaw-Wright.

This Council agrees that maintenance of Council owned areas, particularly the public areas of housing estates, including: grassed amenity areas and verges; trees; play areas; ginnels; and paved areas, falls far short of reasonable standards, particularly the standards achieved by Town and Parish Councils, and brings the Council into disrepute.

This is not a criticism of our Contractors, who can only work to the contract agreed with Selby District Council. The contract is clearly deficient in many respects.

The Council therefore instructs Officers to carry out an immediate re-assessment of Council owned land in these areas and the current contractual arrangements for their maintenance and report their findings to Council at the next meeting (September 17, 2019), setting out: the issues that need to be addressed; measures to address the shortcomings; and the costs and necessary amendments to existing maintenance contracts to address this.

Minutes:

It was noted that two motions had been submitted for discussion. The first motion submitted was as follows:

That this Full Council agrees that Selby District Council should move from an Executive Structure to a modern Committee based structure that recognises the primacy of the Full Council and in which every elected Councillor plays a full and meaningful part in the Council decision making process.

Councillor Mary McCartney proposed the motion and explained that approving the motion would allow for a more democratic method of governance rather than the current method where decisions were made by only five Members.

Discussion took place on the motion and comments were made by Members in support and against the motion.

In opposition to the motion, Members stated that approving the motion would mean the Council going backwards and that the current systems allowed decisions to be made in an effective way. Concern was raised that moving to a Committee system would result in slower decision making which would hinder the progress of the Council.

In support of the motion, Members stated that there were limited checks and balances to the Executive and that the decision making was restricted to five Members. It was felt that the Committee system would result in the Council performing better for the residents.

Before the motion was put to the vote, a recorded vote was requested in line with rule 19.4 of the Council’s Procedure Rules as outlined in the Council’s Constitution.

For the proposal: Fifteen

Councillors D Brook, S Duckett, J Duggan, K Franks, E Jordan, M Jordan, D Mackay, J McCartney, M McCartney, W Nichols, B Packham, J Shaw-Wright, S Shaw-Wright, P Welburn, and P Welch.

Against the proposal: Sixteen

Councillors K Arthur, D Buckle, J Cattanach, I Chilvers, J Chilvers, M Crane, K Ellis, T Grogan, A Lee, C Lunn, J Mackman, R Musgrave, C Pearson, N Reader, R Sweeting, and M Topping.

The motion was rejected.

RESOLVED:

To refuse the above motion.

The second motion submitted was as follows:

This is not a criticism of our Contractors, who can only work to the contract agreed with Selby District Council. The contract is clearly deficient in many respects.

Councillor Packham proposed the motion and stated there were several areas of the District which needed better maintenance. He informed Council that it was important this issue was addressed.

The Leader of the Council accepted that concerns had been raised about some works carried out however stated that it was important to look at the contract and whether the contractors were performing their duties as agreed. An amendment was therefore proposed by Councillor Crane and seconded by Councillor Sweeting as follows:

The Council agrees to set up a Member Working Group to look at the contract with Amey PLC and ascertain whether the contractor is performing their duties in line with the contract.

Discussion took place on the amendment and it was felt the amendment would not address the issues raised and it was felt that it would be effective for officers to look into the contract.

Before the amendment was put to the vote, a recorded vote was requested in line with rule 19.4 of the Council’s Procedure Rules as outlined in the Council’s Constitution.

For the proposal: Sixteen

Councillors K Arthur, D Buckle, J Cattanach, I Chilvers, J Chilvers, M Crane, K Ellis, T Grogan, A Lee, C Lunn, J Mackman, R Musgrave, C Pearson, N Reader, R Sweeting, and M Topping.

Against the proposal: Fifteen

Councillors D Brook, S Duckett, J Duggan, K Franks, E Jordan, M Jordan, D Mackay, J McCartney, M McCartney, W Nichols, B Packham, J Shaw-Wright, S Shaw-Wright, P Welburn, and P Welch.

The amendment was carried and was then put to the vote as the substantive motion.

RESOLVED:

To agree the following amended motion:

The Council agrees to set up a Member Working Group to look at the contract with Amey PLC and ascertain whether the contractor is performing their duties in line with the contract.