At the invitation of the Chair the Monitoring Officer made the following announcement:

‘In March 2020 following the first lockdown, and the government advice not to meet in person, the Council made interim arrangements for democratic oversight of the Council.  This included arrangements under the Constitution for Policy Committee to assume greater responsibility for decisions, with a smaller quorum of councillors. 

In addition, Policy Committee allowed greater flexibility in the existing Decision Book process, by removing the 10-day call-in period so as to allow more urgent decisions to be made through that mechanism if necessary.  In granting this greater flexibility, the Policy Committee also delegated authority to me to bring the arrangement to an end “in accordance with government guidelines and restrictions on public gatherings”.

Since July 2021 the government has effectively removed all restrictions on meeting in public.  In person meetings are taking place and the democratic oversight of council business is back to normal.  There is greater resilience now given the Council’s adoption of hybrid meetings like this.  So for all these reasons, I consider that there is no longer any justification for the call-in procedure to be disapplied.  I am therefore exercising my delegation to restore the Decision Book process as set out in the Constitution.’