2019-08-06 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                    6 AUGUST 2019


The outstanding matters that this report will deal with are as follows:
Notified Motion Item 5 – Proposal to rescind a previous Council resolution; and
Notified Motion Item 6 - Keeping of minutes for Committee meetings

The Notified Motion included the following:
5.    Rescind the 21 June 2018 Council resolution which exempted Committees from the
      keeping of minutes and request the CEO to ensure minutes of each Committee Meeting
      are taken under Section 272 of the Local Government Regulation 2012.
6.    As in the 21 June 2018 resolution, note that the Planning and Environment Committee,
      Services and Organisation Committee and General Committee meetings will continue to
      note the movers and seconders of motions in accordance with section 270 of the Local
      Government Regulation 2012.
In response to questions from a Councillor at the 20 June 2019 Ordinary meeting, I advised that
it is not generally possible to repeal a Council resolution that has already been acted upon. I
once again confirm that advice to Council. The basis of that proposition is that once a Council
resolution has been acted upon, the repealing of the resolution authorising that action could
potentially make any action taken unlawful.
My advice is that the Council could not lawfully pass the motion set out in item 5 of the Notified
Motion.
That is not to say that once a Council makes a resolution, the issue cannot be addressed again.
In many instances, a Council will choose to do something different to an original resolution.
Perhaps the best way to explain this is through a series of examples:
    Council adopts a policy in relation to subject matter xyz. It implements that policy and
      takes action in accordance with that policy once that resolution has been adopted by
      Council. Two years later, Council may wish to introduce a different policy on the same
      topic. That does not mean that it needs to go back and repeal the resolution which adopted
      the original policy. Doing so may make the adoption of the original policy “null and void” by
      repealing the resolution that adopted it. The correct approach would be to repeal the policy
      (not the resolution) and to adopt a new policy.
    Council appoints Councillor A to represent Council on a community committee. Sometime
      later Council may wish to change its representatives on various community committees.
      Councillor A has been representing Council based on the original resolution to appoint
      them to that committee. The correct approach would not be to repeal the original resolution
      appointing Councillor A (who has been acting in accordance with that resolution), but
      rather, to pass a resolution replacing Councillor A with Councillor B on that community
      committee
    Council passes a resolution to enter into a contract with XYZ. Before the contract is
      signed, notice is given to repeal that resolution. In this case, the Council resolution has not
      been implemented and it would be appropriate to repeal the resolution to enter into that
      contract.
If the intent of item 5 in the notice of motion was to revisit the Council decision as to how it keeps
minutes of meetings, the repeal of the Council decision of 21 June 2018 was not the correct
method. The correct way would have been to propose that, for example, Council commence to
record formal minutes for its committees from a particular date. In that way, the original resolution
stands as it relates to the period from its adoption through to the new resolution and the new
resolution could stand on its own.
In relation to item 6, this matter was addressed at length in my report to Council in June 2018
(Ref. Services & Organisation Committee Agenda, 12 June 2018, Item 16, Page 86). Council
made a decision in relation to this matter at that time and we have been operating in accordance
with that Council decision (and relevant local government legislation).

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