Minutes:
At the request of the Lord Mayor Kamal Adatia, the City Barrister and Monitoring Officer addressed Council and gave the following advice regarding the declaration of interests at the meeting noting that:
· Members did not need to declare interests that already appeared on their Register of Interests, which is a publically accessible and available document. The Localism Act 2011 expressly excused a Member from having to re-declare interests that appeared on the Register.
· In advance of the meeting Members had been asked to indicate if they intended to make a declaration of interest at the meeting which was not already recorded on their Register of Interests. No matters had been highlighted which were not already included on the Members’ Register.
· The City Barrister and Monitoring Officer had not received any requests for advice on prejudicial ODIs or DPIs but the Lord Mayor would be offering an opportunity to declare such interests shortly. Where a Member did have a prejudicial ODI or DPI they would need to declare the interest and leave the room and would be barred from participating in the discussion or from voting. The judgement remained one for the Member to make with officers only able to offer advice.
· Under the provisions of Section 106 Local Government Finance Act 1992 any Member who is in two or more months of arrears of Council Tax shall not vote on the items for consideration tonight. Criminal liability attaches to such a Member who does so.
· A request for the granting of a category of dispensation had been received without which it might be necessary for those Members to leave the Chamber. After consultation with the Standards Committee a dispensation had been granted to elected Members who were council tenants (or had family members or close associates who were council tenants) to enable them to remain and participate and vote on both the Budget proposals and, crucially, the Housing Revenue Account proposals that came before the meeting. The names of those Members who require this dispensation must be identified at the meeting and appear in the minutes. Members were reminded that should they not indicate they would not be covered by the dispensation.
Members who had not yet asked to be granted the benefit of the dispensation were asked to raise their hand and to declare why.
In response the following Members sought and received dispensations:
Councillor Halford - self and family members are Council tenants
Councillor Byrne –self and family members are Council tenants
Councillor Aqbany – family member who is a Council tenant and a family member in receipt of a blue badge.
Councillor Thalukdar – family members who are Council tenant
Councillor Aldred – family member who is a Council tenant.
Councillor Westley - family members who are Council tenants
The Lord Mayor invited Members to declare any further interests they might have in the business on the agenda and/or indicate if Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applied to them.
No further declarations were made.