Appendix A
Petition Scheme
1. The Council welcomes petitions and
recognises that petitions are one way in which people can let us know their
concerns. All petitions sent or presented to the Council will receive an
acknowledgement from the Council within 10 working days of receipt. This acknowledgement will set out what we
plan to do with the petition. We will treat something as a petition if it is
identified as being a petition, or if it seems to us that it is intended to be
a petition, with a minimum of 10 signatures.
Paper petitions
can be sent to:
Democratic
Services
Directorate of Resources
Copley House
Waterdale
DN1 3EQ
Or be created, signed and
submitted online by following this link (to be inserted when the e-petition goes
live).
2. Petitions can also be presented to a
meeting of the Council. These meetings take place on a 6 weekly basis, dates
and times can be found here (link to the
Council Chamber diary page to be inserted).
If you would like to present your petition to the Council, or would like
your Councillor or someone else to present it on your behalf, please contact
[insert name] on [insert phone number] at least 10 working days before the
meeting and they will talk you through the process. If your petition has
received 10,000 signatures or more
it will also be scheduled for a Council debate and if this is the case we will
let you know whether this will happen at the same meeting or a later meeting of
the Council.
What are the guidelines for submitting a
petition?
3. Petitions submitted to the Council must
include:
·
a clear and concise
statement covering the subject of the petition. It should state what action the
petitioners wish the Council to take;
·
the name and address and
signature of any person supporting the petition.
4. Petitions must (should) be
accompanied by contact details, including an address, for the petition
organiser. This is the person we will contact to explain how we will respond to
the petition. The contact details of the petition organiser will not be placed
on the website.
5. Petitions which are considered to be
vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate will not be accepted. In the
period immediately before an election or referendum we may need to deal with
your petition differently – if this is the case we will explain the reasons and
discuss the revised timescale which will apply. If a petition does not follow
the guidelines set out above, the Council may decide not to do anything further
with it. In that case, we will write to you to explain the reasons.
What will the Council do when it receives my
petition?
6. An acknowledgement will be sent to the
petition organiser within 10 working
days of receiving the petition. It will let them know what we plan to do with
the petition and when they can expect to hear from us again. It will also be
published on our website.
7. If we can do what your petition asks
for, the acknowledgement may confirm that we have taken the action requested
and the petition will be closed. If the petition has enough signatures to
trigger a Council debate, or a senior officer giving evidence, then the
acknowledgment will confirm this and tell you when and where the meeting will
take place. If the petition needs more investigation, we will tell you the
steps we plan to take.
8. If the petition applies to a planning
or licensing application, is a statutory petition (for example requesting a
referendum), or on a matter where there
is already an existing right of appeal, such as Council tax banding and
non-domestic rates, other procedures apply. Further information on all these
procedures and how you can express your views is available from the Democratic Services Team.
9. We will not take action on any petition
which we consider to be vexatious,
abusive or otherwise inappropriate and will explain the reasons for this
in our acknowledgement of the petition.
10. To ensure that people know what we are
doing in response to the petitions we receive the details of all the petitions
submitted to us will be published on our website, except in cases where this
would be inappropriate. Whenever possible we will also publish all
correspondence relating to the petition (all personal details will be removed).
When you sign an e-petition you can elect to receive this information by email.
We will not send you anything which is not relevant to the e-petition you have
signed, unless you choose to receive other emails from us.
How will the Council respond to petitions?
11. Our response to a petition will depend on
what a petition asks for and how many people have signed it, but may include
one or more of the following:
• taking the action requested in the petition
• considering the petition at a Council
meeting
• holding an inquiry into the matter
• undertaking research into the matter
• holding a public meeting
• holding a consultation
• holding a meeting with petitioners
• referring the petition for consideration by
the Council’s overview and scrutiny committee*
• calling a referendum
• writing to the petition organiser setting
out our views about the request in
the petition
12. *Overview and scrutiny committees are
committees of Councillors who are
responsible for scrutinising the work of the Council – in other words,
the overview and scrutiny committee has the power to hold the Council’s
decision makers to account.
13. In addition to these steps, the Council
will consider all the specific actions it can potentially take on the issues
highlighted in a petition.
14. If your petition is about something over
which the Council has no direct control
(for example the local railway or hospital) we will consider making
representations on behalf of the community to the relevant body. The Council works
with a large number of local partners and where possible will work with these
partners to respond to your petition. If we are not able to do this for any
reason (for example if what the petition calls for conflicts with Council
policy), then we will set out the reasons for this to you. You can find more
information on the services for which the Council is responsible on the Council’s website.
15. If your petition is about something that
a different Council is responsible for we will give consideration to what the
best method is for responding to it. This might consist of simply forwarding
the petition to the other Council, but could involve other steps. In any event
we will always notify you of the action we have taken.
Full Council debates
16. If a petition contains more than 10,000 signatures it will be debated by
the full Council unless it is a petition asking for a senior Council officer to
give evidence at a public meeting. This means that the issue raised in the
petition will be discussed at a meeting which all Councillors can attend. The
Council will endeavour to consider the petition at its next meeting, although
on some occasions this may not be possible (e.g.
the Annual Council Meeting) and consideration will then take place at the
following meeting. The petition organiser will be given five minutes to present
the petition at the meeting and the petition will then be discussed by
Councillors for a maximum of 15 minutes. The Council will decide how to respond
to the petition at this meeting. They may decide to take the action the petition
requests, not to take the action requested for reasons put forward in the
debate, or to commission further investigation into the matter, for example by
a relevant committee. Where the issue is one on which the Council executive are
required to make the final decision, the Council will decide whether to make
recommendations to inform that decision. The petition organiser will receive
written confirmation of this decision. This confirmation will also be published
on our website.
Officer evidence
17. Your petition may ask for a senior
Council officer to give evidence at a public meeting about something for which
the officer is responsible as part of their job. For example, your petition may
ask a senior Council officer to explain progress on an issue, or to explain the
advice given to elected members to enable them to make a particular decision.
18. If your petition contains at least 2,500 signatures, the relevant senior
officer (a Director of the Council)
will give evidence at a public meeting of the Council’s overview and scrutiny
committee. A list of the senior staff that can be called to give evidence can
be found on the Council’s website.
You should be aware that the overview and scrutiny committee may decide that it
would be more appropriate for another officer to give evidence instead of any
officer named in the petition – for instance if the named officer has changed
jobs. The committee may also decide to call the relevant Councillor to attend
the meeting. Committee members will ask the questions at this meeting, but you
will be able to suggest questions to the chair of the committee by contacting the Scrutiny Manager up to three
working days before the meeting.
E-petitions
19. From
15th December 2010 the Council will welcome e-petitions which
are created and submitted through our website. E-petitions must follow the same
guidelines as paper petitions.
Further guidance on e-petitions will be issued in due course.
What can I do if I feel my petition has not
been dealt with properly?
20. If you feel that we have not dealt with
your petition properly, the petition organiser has the right to request that
the Council’s overview and scrutiny committee review the steps that the Council
has taken in response to your petition. It is helpful to everyone, and can
improve the prospects for a review if the petition organiser gives a short
explanation of the reasons why the Council’s response is not considered to be
adequate.
21. The committee will endeavour to consider
your request at its next meeting, although on some occasions this may not be
possible and consideration will take place at the following meeting. Should the
committee determine we have not dealt with your petition adequately, it may use
any of its powers to deal with the matter. These powers include instigating an
investigation, making recommendations to the Council executive and arranging
for the matter to be considered at a meeting of the full Council.
22. Once the appeal has been considered the
petition organiser will be informed of the results within 5 working days. The
results of the review will also be published on our website.