Questions from the public
9.1 General
During a period of 30 minutes, or a longer period at the discretion of the Chair, residents of Hartlepool may raise questions of, Chairs of Committees and SubCommittees at ordinary meetings of Full Council in accordance with these procedure rules.
9.2 Notice of questions
A question may only be asked if notice has been given by delivering it in writing or by electronic mail to the Chief Executive no later than noon at least seven clear working days before the date of the meeting. Each question must give the name and address of the questioner and must name the Chair of Committee to whom it is to be put (if the questioner is under 16 years of age, the notice must include the name, address and signature of the parent or guardian of the questioner).
Questions may be submitted at a later time than the deadline stated above if, in the opinion of the Chair of the Council, the question relates to an urgent issue that has arisen after the deadline.
9.3 Order of questions
- i) In respect of receipt of more than one question under rule 9.2 and not rejected under rule 9.5, questions will be asked in the order received, except that the Chair of the Council may group together similar questions.
- ii) There shall be excluded from the process described in rule 9.3(i) the question of any person whose question was dealt with at the immediately preceding ordinary meeting of the Full Council which shall be placed at the end of the order of questions. If there is more than one question to which this paragraph applies, they shall be asked in the order in which they were asked at the preceding meeting.
9.4 Number of questions
At any one meeting no person may submit more than 2 questions but a question may consist of a number of parts.
9.5 Scope of questions
The Chief Executive in consultation with the Chair of the Council, may reject a question if:-
- i) it is not about a matter for which the Authority has a responsibility or which affects the Borough;
- ii) or it is out of order, illegal, irregular or improper; or
- iii) it is defamatory, frivolous or offensive; or
- iv) it is substantially the same as a question which has been put at a meeting of the Council in the past six months and since when there has been no change of circumstances justifying the resubmission of the question ; or
- v) it requires the disclosure of confidential or exempt information; or
- vi) it is unreasonably excessive because of its length or its number of parts.
9.6 Record of questions
- i) The Chief Executive will enter each question in a book open to public inspection and will immediately send a copy of the question to the Elected Member to whom it is to be put. Rejected questions will include reasons for rejection.
- ii) The Chief Executive shall notify the questioner in writing addressed to the questioner at the address at which s/he is registered that his/her question has been accepted (or referred to a Policy Committee under Rule 9.8) or rejected under rule 9.5 (the letter will be copied to the parent or guardian identified in the notice if the questioner is under 16 years of age)
- iii) Copies of all questions will be circulated to all Elected Members and will be made available to the public attending the meeting.
9.7 Asking the question at the meeting
- i) The Chair will invite the Chief Executive to read the submitted question to the Elected Member named in the notice, unless the questioner would prefer to read out their own question.
- ii) Any question which cannot be dealt with during public question time, either because of lack of time or because of the non-attendance of the Elected Member who was to respond to the question, will be dealt with by way of a written answer.
- iii) Once the question has been asked, the Elected member named in the notice will have 5 minutes to respond to the question.
- iv) Once the question has been responded to, a questioner may ask up to two supplementary questions without notice for clarification purposes only. The supplementary question must arise directly from the original question or reply. That following the response, the Chair will ask the member of the public if they consider that their question has been answered, if so there will be no debate. If the member of the public states that their question has not been answered, the Chair will allow up to 10 minutes for debate and that the normal Rules of Debate will apply.
9.8 Formal Referral of a Public Question to a Policy Committee
If the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Chair of Council, considers that it would be more appropriate to do so, a question received on notice for submission to Full Council under Rule 9.2 may instead be referred to the next relevant Policy Committee for answer and shall be dealt with in accordance with the Council’s Protocol for Public Questions at Policy Committee meetings which is included in Part 5 of the Constitution.
9.9 Asking Questions at Policy Committee Meetings
The public may ask questions at Policy Committee meetings in relation to the items on the agenda with a time limit of 4 minutes to include asking and responding to the question