Use of Substitutes on Council Committees

Key Principles

1. The Council (at its Annual Meeting) will appoint specified substitutes for its committees and sub-committees on the nomination of political group leaders and in accordance with political proportionality rules. See 4. below.

2. Substitution will not be permitted at meetings of the:

(a) Licensing Sub-Committee

(b) Appointments Committee unless a member is substituting for an entire matter.

3. For the purposes of this arrangement, the member being substituted is referred to as the “Ordinary Member” and the replacement as the “Substitute Member”.

4. In accordance with 1. above, and subject to the exceptions in paragraph 5., the allocation of members within each political group available to act as substitutes will be in accordance with the political balance on the committee concerned on the following basis:

(a) More than 5 seats on the committee – 3 substitutes

(b) Between 2 - 5 seats on the committee – 2 substitutes

(c) 1 seat on the committee – 1 substitute

5. The exceptions to 4. above will be:

a.  any non-aligned members, who may nominate a substitute member of a Committee from any one of the political groups, to sit in their absence.

b. Any member of a two-person Group, who may nominate a substitute member of Planning or Licensing Committee, from any one of the political groups, to sit in their absence at a meeting of the Committee, subject to that member having undertaken the required training for the relevant Committee.

In these situations, Council has agreed to disapply political proportionality requirements in s15(5) of the Local Government and Housing Act 1999.

6. Written notice of the substitution must be delivered by the Ordinary Member or their Group Leader to the Monitoring Officer and notified to Committee Services, no later than 2 hours before the meeting for which the change in membership is required. This notice must set out the meeting in question, the name of the ordinary member and the name of the substitute member. The substitution will not be valid unless this procedure is followed.

7. With the exception of the arrangements for non-aligned members and two member Groups in 4 above, the substitute member must be a member of the Council drawn from the same political group as the ordinary member who is unable to attend the meeting and must not already be a member of the Committee concerned. The Mayor may not act as a substitute at any Committee meeting.

8. The substitute arrangement must be announced at the beginning of the meeting and recorded in the minutes.

9. If the ordinary member attends after the substitution has been announced at the meeting, the substitute member will continue as the appointed voting member. If the substitute member fails to attend and the ordinary member is present, then the ordinary member may take their place on the committee with full voting rights.

10. Once a meeting has started with the ordinary member in place, no substitution can then be made during the course of the meeting to replace that member.

11. Where a substitute member has attended a meeting which is adjourned, the ordinary member may attend the reconvened meeting as the voting member, provided that the meeting is not part way through the consideration of an item or issue.

12. A member acting as a substitute for the Chair or Vice-Chair of a committee will not, by virtue of that substitution, be entitled to act in either capacity.  In the absence of both the Chair and Vice-Chair from a meeting (and the appointment of substitute members to attend in their place) the meeting shall appoint a Chair for the meeting who may be drawn from any members (including any substitute member) present and with voting rights.

13. The substitute member may speak and vote in their own capacity and is not constrained by the views of the ordinary member they are replacing.

14. No substitute member at Regulatory Committees may vote unless they have been present for the entire consideration of the item under discussion.

15. Only members who have received the appropriate training may be appointed to act as substitutes on the Regulatory Committees.

16. Substitute members must receive copies of agendas and reports of the committees they are assigned to at the same time as ordinary members.