Decision:
The Chair welcomed everyone to this virtual Extraordinary Council meeting that was being conducted with Members and Officers at various locations, communicating via audio/video and online and advised that there was the opportunity for the public and press to listen and view proceedings.
The Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager gave advise regarding the following:
· Attendance;
· Virtual Meeting;
· Noise Interference;
· Rules of Debate;
· Voting.
The Chair of the Council, Councillor Jean Green started the meeting proper.
Minutes:
Audio Recording – Session 1 – 14 seconds
The Chair welcomed everyone to this virtual Extraordinary Council meeting that was being conducted with Members and Officers at various locations, communicating via audio/video and online and advised that there was the opportunity for the public and press to listen and view proceedings.
The Chair invited the Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager to explain how proceedings would work and to confirm that Members were in attendance.
The Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager advised the following:
Attendance
With the agreement of the Group Leaders, the meeting would operate with the quorate number plus one additional Member from each group being 15 Members in total.
A roll call was undertaken to confirm that the required Members were present and could hear and be heard..
If for any reason the meeting was not quorate an Officer interject the meeting and the meeting would adjourn immediately. Once the meeting was quorate the meeting would resume.
Only Members present during the entire debate for an item were entitled to vote. If a Member had been cut off during the debate for longer than a few minutes and re-joined the meeting, then they would not be able to vote on that item.
Virtual Meeting
As this was NHDC’s first virtual meeting, Members were asked to be guided by officers and be patient as things may take longer than usual.
There had been a significant amount of work going on behind the scenes and given the time constraints of when the regulations were enacted to now, we must be prepared and be kind, if there are technical glitches and be mindful of each of our individual personal circumstances that we are operating in.
Noise Interference
The Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager asked all in attendance to ensure that mobile phones were muted.
Participants should activate the mute button when not speaking, otherwise it may be difficult to hear what was being said with background noise and were reminded to unmute themselves when invited by the Chair to address Council.
If participants had activated their camera, please be mindful that they could be seen.
Participants were asked to show respect to each other and do not talk over someone who was already speaking or interject uninvited.
Participants were asked to state their name each time before they spoke.
Rules of Debate
If a Member wished to speak they should use the hand/request to speak symbol and this would alert the moderator. The moderator would inform the Chair of the names of the speakers, who should wait to be invited by the Chair to address the Council meeting.
Those wishing to speak would need to be enabled to speak by one of the moderators and would then need to accept the request to speak on their screen.
Members were reminded that the normal procedure rules in respect of debate and times to speak would apply.
No speeches may be made after the mover had moved a proposal and explained the purpose of it until the motion had been seconded.
When seconding a motion or amendment, a Member may reserve their speech until later in the debate.
Members were reminded that, in accordance with the Constitution, no speech should exceed five minutes without the consent of the Chair
If a Member had a closure motion, personal explanation or point of order, they must indicate this by sending a message in the chat facility, as there was no way for them to interject the meeting. The Chair would be notified of the request.
Officers were advised that, if they needed to address the Council at any point during proceedings, to aid discussions, they should respectfully interject and await a response before addressing the Chair or the Council.
Voting
When satisfied that there had been sufficient debate, the Chair would request that the Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager read out the recommendation that Members would be voting upon, following which the Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager would call out the name of each member present. When called Members would be required to clearly state either ‘for’, ‘against’ or ‘abstain’ to indicate their vote.
The Committee, Member and Scrutiny Manager would then clearly state the result of the vote and the Chair would then move onto the next agenda item.
Details of how Members voted would not be kept or minuted unless a Recorded Vote was requested or an individual requested that their vote be recorded, although this would be heard on the audio and video recordings of the meeting.
In the event of a tied vote the Chair would have the casting vote.
In response to a question the Service Director - Legal and Community advised that the new legislation required that Members be present for the item and that, with all discretion, two minutes would be the maximum amount of time a Member could be absent from the meeting and still retain the ability to vote.
The Chair of the Council, Councillor Jean Green started the meeting proper.