Decision Making at the Council

In this section you can access a wide range of information and documents relating to the council’s decision making processes, find out about forthcoming Council meetings and decisions and obtain details for your local political representatives.

**Covid-19 Announcement**

Government regulations that came into effect on 4 April 2020 allow remote meetings to take place and to make formal decisions at those meetings. Some of the Council’s formal meetings have been held as live broadcast meetings since the meeting of the Executive on 19th May 2020 but not all. Over September, October and November 2020, we will live broadcast an increasing number of the Council’s formal meetings and by December 2020 all of our formal meetings will be live broadcast.

The meetings will be live streamed via the Council’s You Tube page. A Protocol for Remote Meetings, together with User Guides for Members of the Public, are contained among the documents further down this page.

The Chief Executive Officer is also able to exercise emergency decision making powers where necessary and appropriate in order to ensure that the Council is able to continue to respond effectively and efficiently to a still rapidly changing situation.

At this stage, there is no intention to return to holding meetings in person for the foreseeable future.

Live Meetings

During coronavirus we will be carrying out some of our meetings virtually. You can watch those meetings live here and replay previous meetings:

Protocol for remote meetings and user guides for members of the public

How to get involved

Find out more about the Council's public participation scheme

It is also possible to subscribe to updates in order to receive information via e-mail regarding particular issues and committee meetings.

Outside bodies

A list of outside bodies and forums that are independent from the council, and the the council representatives on them, can be found in the Library

To view documents in pdf format you will require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.

Constitution

A full copy of the constitution can be found here Constitution

The Covid-19 edition of the constitution can be found here Covid-19 edition

Notices of urgency, exempt information and call-in exemption

Access to information notices are published regarding:

• any urgent decisions which cannot comply with the publication timescales set out in the Access to Information Procedure Rules;
• the intention to hold a formal meeting (or part of it) of an executive decision-making body in private; and
• the exclusion of the call-in procedure from a decision (when it would otherwise apply).

These are available to view via the Library