Agenda item

The full Council

This part of the constitution explains the role of the full Council (at South Oxfordshire District Council this is all 36 councillors and at Vale of White Horse District Council all 38 councillors), what decisions can be made only by the full Council and includes the Council procedure rules.

1.       Policy framework. The policy framework means the following plans and strategies:

(a)      corporate plan and priorities

(b)      licensing policy statement

(c)      gambling statement of principles; and

(d)      plans and alterations which together comprise the development plan (the “Local Plan”).

2. Budget. The budget includes:

(a)      the calculation of the revenue budget requirement;

(b)      the original and revised revenue estimates;

(c)      the capital programme;

(d)      the allocation of financial resources to different services and projects;

(e)      proposed contingency funds;

(f)       the council tax base;

(g)      setting the council tax;

(h)      the annual investment strategy; and

(i)       decisions relating to the control of the council’s borrowing requirements and control of its expenditure.

Functions of the full Council

3. Only the full Council will exercise the following functions, to:

(a)      adopt and change the constitution subject to amendments being made by the head of legal and democratic to reflect changes in staff responsibilities;

          (b)      approve or adopt the policy framework and the budget;

(c)      make decisions on matters that are the responsibility of the Cabinet where the decision maker is minded to make it in a manner that would be contrary to the policy framework, outside the budget, or outside any limits on the Cabinet’s ability to make minor changes to the budget;

(d)      adopt or approve a plan or strategy (other than a plan or strategy forming part of the policy framework), where the Council determines that it should take the decision whether to adopt that plan or strategy;

          (e)      elect the leader and remove him/her from office;

(f)       agree and/or amend the terms of reference for committees, decide on their composition and make appointments to them except where the head of legal and democratic exercises a delegation to make appointments;

          (g)      adopt a councillors’ allowances scheme;

          (h)      approve the council’s pay policy statement on an annual basis;

          (i)       change the name of the area;

          (j)       adopt the councillors’ code of conduct;

          (k)      confer the title of honorary alderman or honorary freeman;

(l)       appoint councillors to the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel;

(m)     appoint the head of paid service, the chief finance officer, the monitoring officer, the returning officer and the electoral registration officer;

(n)      make, amend, revoke, re-enact or adopt bylaws and promote or oppose the making of local legislation or personal bills;

(o)      decide whether to accept a delegation from another local authority under joint arrangements, carry out or delegate all local choice functions which the council decides should be undertaken by itself rather than the Cabinet; and

(p)      deal with other matters which, by law, must be decided by Council.

Council meetings

4.       There are three types of Council meeting:

(a) the annual meeting;

(b) ordinary meetings; and

(c) extraordinary (special) meetings.

They will be conducted in accordance with the Council procedure rules.

Responsibility for functions

5.       The council will maintain the responsibility for functions tables in the ‘Decision Making’ section of this constitution setting out the responsibilities for the Council’s functions that are not the responsibility of the Cabinet.