Appendix 2 - Protocol on extraordinary meetings
1. Calling extraordinary meetings
The persons listed below may request the Chief Executive to call Council eetings in addition to ordinary meetings:
- i) the Council by resolution;
- ii) the Chair, or, in his/her absence, the Vice-Chair;
- iii) the Council’s Monitoring Officer; and
- iv) any five Elected Members of the Council if they have signed a requisition (in the form as that reproduced in Appendix 1) presented to the Chair of the Council and she/he has refused to call a meeting or has failed to call a meeting within seven days of the presentation of the requisition.
At other times the Chief Executive may call a meeting of Full Council whenever they consider it necessary and/or appropriate to do so.
1.1 The requisitioning Members are required to provide with the requisition notice, a notice of the motion or motions to be debated at the Extraordinary meeting.
1.2 The purpose of an Extraordinary Meeting is to enable business to be transacted, or a matter to be debated, that cannot await until the next ordinary Council meeting. The expectation, therefore, is that the matter covered in the notice of motion will be urgent.
1.3 Given the challenges of organising a full council meeting at short notice and the inconvenience that may be caused to members, the matter(s) covered in the notice of motion should also be one(s) that cannot be dealt with to the requisitioning members’ satisfaction in some other way.
1.4 This protocol is designed to provide a locally agreed framework within which requisitions for Extraordinary Meetings can be handled in a reasonable and co- operative way.
1.5 This does not affect the statutory rights of councillors to make such a requisition or of the Chair to refuse to call an extraordinary meeting or to call an Extraordinary Meeting at any time after being presented with a requisition.
2. Steps to taken during the requisition period
2.1 In the event that the matter is not resolved satisfactorily and a requisition is presented to the Chair, if it appears appropriate discussion with the requisitioning members will continue to see whether matters can be resolved without a full Council meeting being held.
2.2 In the event that the requisitioning members, or any of them, are satisfied before the 7 day period has expired, they should notify the Chair that they no longer support the requisition and will not participate in the calling of an Extraordinary meeting if no such meeting is called by the Chair.