The Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report asking the Committee to approve for community involvement the consultation paper on the Statement of Community Involvement.  An Equality Impact Assessment was attached to the report at Appendix 1 and the proposed consultation paper on the Statement of Community Involvement was attached to the report at Appendix 2.

The report explained that the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) was a planning document that detailed how consultation and community involvement on plans and applications would be carried out.  It was a statutory requirement to have an SCI in place and one of the considerations for examination of any future development plans would be whether it had complied with the SCI.  The Council’s most recent SCI had been adopted in March 2014 and there was now an opportunity to consider whether there was a need to revise the SCI, to ask the community whether this represented the best way of consulting, learn from experience and take account of any legislative changes.  Rather than produce a full draft at this stage it had been proposed to consult on this in the form of a discussion paper.

Resolved -      That the Consultation Paper on the Statement of Community Involvement, attached to the report at Appendix 2, be approved for community involvement.