Minutes:
Before the Mayor could commence with agenda item 3 – Election of the Mayor 2020/ 2021, Councillor Lamb, the Leader of the Council, moved a Procedural Motion – 11 q) To suspend a particular Full Council Procedure Rule. In doing so he proposed that Virtual Committee Procedure Rule 10.4 – For any Committee held virtually, all voting will be held via a recorded vote taken by the Head of Legal, Democracy and HR or other Legal Officer/Democratic Services Officer on behalf of the Chair be suspected for the current meeting. Instead it was proposed that each political Group be able to use a Block vote, where one Councillor be nominated to vote on behalf all of their respective Group. Councillor Lamb suggested that the Group Whip would be logical Councillor to be using the block vote.
Councillor Crow, the Leader of the Opposition, then seconded the Procedural Motion and confirmed his support for the proposal.
For clarification it was confirmed the reason why a Full Council Procedural Motion related to the Virtual Committee Procedure Rule (VCPR), as the VCPR took precedent over any other Procedure Rules if the meeting was being held virtually. It was also explained to the meeting that should the Full Council accepted the proposed Motion enacting Block Voting, all individual Councillors would still have the opinion to vote individually rather within their Group’s vote, should they so wish.
The Mayor then invited the Democratic Service Manager to commence the recorded voting process on the Procedural Motion - 11 q) To suspend a particular Full Council Procedure Rule in relation to Virtual Committee Procedure Rule over all voting being held via a recorded vote, and to enable Block Voting be enacted to allow the Group Whip to vote on behalf of their respective Group as a block vote.
The names of the Councillors voting for and against the Procedural Motion were recorded as set out below:
Voting in Favour: Councillors: Ascough, Ayling, A Belben, T Belben, B Burgess,
R Burgess, Burrett, Crow, Eade, Flack, Guidera, Hart, Irvine, Jaggard, Jhans, Jones, Lamb, Lanzer, Lunnon, Malik, McAleney, McCarthy, Millar-Smith, Mullins, Mwagale, Peck, Pendlington, Pickett, Purdy, Rana, Sharma, B Smith, and P Smith. (33)
Voting Against: None (0)
Abstentions: Councillors Fiveash and Sudan (2)
The Mayor declared the Procedural Motion was carried – votes in favour 33, and votes against 0 with 2 abstentions.
RESOLVED
That the Full Council approves that:
· Virtual Committee Procedure Rule 10.4 – For any Committee held virtually, all voting will be held via a recorded vote taken by the Head of Legal, Democracy and HR or other Legal Officer/ Democratic Services Officer on behalf of the Chair be suspended for the current meeting
· Block Voting be enacted to allow the Group Whip to vote on behalf of their respective Group as a block vote.
· Any individual from within their Group would still retain the right to use their own vote as an individual and not be included within their Group’s Block Vote.