Constitution Consultation

[admin]

The last chance to submit your thoughts on the council constitution is this coming Friday so if you have any views on the removal of the public's right to ask their own questions or ask suppplementary questions, a right recently removed, then this is the time to do it.

This is the original Press Release put out by HBC

LOCAL people are being given a chance to air their views on a key document which helps shape the running of Hartlepool Council.


All councils are required by law to prepare and keep up to date a document, known as the 'Constitution' which contains information as to the rights of local people and how they can participate in the running of the council.

Since May of this year, following a Referendum on how the Council should be governed, a committee system has replaced the Elected Mayor who appointed councillors to form a Cabinet, where certain decisions were taken.

All decisions are now taken either by Full Council, committees or by an officer under delegated authority. The Constitution outlines who has responsibility for decisions as well as how local people can become involved.

Under the Constitution, members of the public are able to put questions to policy committee chairs at their regular meetings and ask two questions at Full Council. All of the policy chairs also attend neighbourhood forum meetings for a 'Face the Public' session.

A copy of the Constitution is available for public inspection at the Civic Centre or can be viewed on the Council's website by clicking here.

The Council will consider recommendations to review its Constitution at a meeting to be held later this year, when a report will be presented by the Council's Chief Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, Peter Devlin. 

Hartlepool residents are invited to contribute to the report to be presented to Council by making comments in writing to Mr Devlin, Hartlepool Council, Civic Centre, Hartlepool TS24 8AY or via e-mail at democratic.services@ hartlepool.gov.uk. Comments need to be submitted by Friday 25 October.

[DRiddle]

As well as obviously calling for the council to bring back supplementary questions, I feel another legitimate request is to make the proportion of committee chairs reflect the political composition of the council chamber.

Currently there are 33 councillors, 19 labour (56%), 6 independent (19%), 5 PHF (16%) and 3 (9%)conservative.

In theory, the committee chairs and seats on the various committees is supposed to be proportionate to the composition of the chamber... but it isn't. Especially not in the case of the Conservatives.

I don't see why this can't be mathematically formulaic, which would ensure proportionality.