2020-11-10 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                             10 NOVEMBER 2020


However, such workshops are very useful for a range of reasons. These include:
  enabling Councillors to get briefed on complex matters;
  providing training for Councillors on roles and responsibilities, new legislation etc;
  allowing Councillors to share information about matters they are currently dealing with;
  providing a forum to explore ideas and discuss concepts in the lead up to developing new
    strategies and policies; and
  being briefed by staff on current operational matters.

We have not previously had any policy/formal structure in relation to our Councillor workshops
and it would be timely while we are looking at the other governance issues to formally adopt a
policy on how our Council workshops will operate.
A draft policy entitled “Councillor Briefing Sessions and Workshops (Non-Statutory Meetings)
Policy” has been prepared and is provided as Attachment 5 to the report.
The key elements of the proposed policy are:
   It recognises that Councillor workshops are a useful and normal process for local
     government Councillors and staff to discuss matters and exchange information;
   It makes abundantly clear that such workshops are not a decision-making forum and that
     any formal Council decisions must be made through the normal Council meeting
     processes; and
   It generally applies the same rules for addressing conflicts of interest that apply to Council
     meetings. Therefore, if any Councillor has a prescribed conflict of interest in a matter being
     discussed at a workshop, they must not be in attendance. Further, if a Councillor has a
     declarable conflict of interest in a matter to be addressed in a briefing or workshop, they
     cannot attend the meeting for that agenda item unless the Council has previously approved
     their participation in that matter under the provisions of the legislation. In practice, this
     means that where a Councillor has previously been allowed to “stay in the room” via a
     Committee/Council meeting process for a declarable conflict of interest, they would also be
     able to attend a Councillor workshop on that topic. Conversely, if there has not been such a
     decision by the Council on that declarable conflict of interest, they would not be able to stay
     in the room for the workshop on that topic. (As workshops are not decision-making forums,
     it would not be possible for a decision by the Councillors present at that workshop to allow
     another Councillor who has a declarable conflict of interest to stay in the room).

7    Other relevant issues
There are a number of other matters associated with the recent legislative changes that are
highlighted for Council’s information.
A.   Councillor Administrative Support
     Almost every council in Queensland provides administrative support to Councillors at some
     level. Some concerns have previously been raised about whether Councillors would
     potentially breach the “not giving directions rule” to staff by requesting administrative staff
     to perform tasks. This has now been resolved by legislation to make it clear that it is
     appropriate for Councillors to request administrative support from designated staff.
     Councillors are now able to provide the designated administrative staff with requests
     without breaching the Local Government Act provisions.
     The legislation also makes provision for the Chief Executive Officer to adopt guidelines to
     formalise this process and these are currently being prepared. In practice, there will be no
     change at our Council in the way in which administrative support is provided.




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