See page 37/8 of attached report.
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The reference in the heading to the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 is no longer required, following the transition to a Committee system. Section 13 - Members' additional rights of access –Members also have a common law "need to know" in respect of any information held by the Council which they need to have access to in order to be able to discharge their functions as a Councillor effectively. Members must state the reason why they need the information when requesting it.
In addition, when inspecting documents that a Councillor has a right to inspect there are some procedures that would be useful to guide Members and Officers on how that might occur. These guidelines are not set out in the paragraph 13.3:
- Members should have access to the information for supervised reading. - This means that the Member must attend mutually agreed council premises to read the documents.
- A paper or electronic copy will not be supplied in these cases nor will photocopying be pemitted (sic).
- An officer with sufficient understanding and experience to answer any questions should be present, as should a lawyer
- In some circumstances Members may be asked to sign confidentiality agreements
