Members gave consideration to the
Cabinet reports of 26 January 2012 and after careful consideration
Members decided not to call-in any decision. The Committee endorsed
all decisions made by the Cabinet at their
meeting.
However the Committee requested information
on the following Cabinet
report:
Cabinet Agenda Item No. 5 - Disabilities
Commissioning Plan 2011-2015 - Outcome of
consultation
"The Committee noted and accepted paragraph 37
(page 28 of the Cabinet agenda) of the report under legal comments.
However, the Committee asked, is the Borough Solicitor confident
that the full consultation process undertaken is robust given well
known legal challenges elsewhere in the country on similar
issues relating to the transformation of social care
services."
[Subsequent to the meeting, the
following response was provided by the Borough Solicitor
:
"I am responding to the request by the Members
of the Executive Scrutiny Committee in which they ask whether I am
confident that the full consultation process undertaken is robust
given well known legal challenges elsewhere in the country on
similar issues relating to the transformation of social care
services.
The reply to this is yes, I am confident that
the consultation process undertaken by the Council is sufficiently
robust. The process is fully documented in Appendix 1 of
the report and it lasted between 26th September 2011 to 16th
January 2012 and as far as I am aware, it is one of the most
thorough consultation processes that has
ever been set out in a Cabinet
report.
The legal principles which have to be
followed by any local authority, whenever it undertakes a
consultation process, have been firmly established by the case
of Rv London Borough of Brent ex parte
Gunning. They are set out in paragraph 35 of the report under
the heading 'Legal' but I will set them out again in this e-mail.
Consultation exercises must
be:
1. undertaken when proposals are still at a
formative
stage;
2. include sufficient reasons for proposals to
allow those consulted to give intelligent consideration and an
intelligent
response;
3. adequate time must be given for this
response;
4. the product of
consultation must be conscientiously taken into account when the
ultimate decision is
made.
In paragraph 37 of the Cabinet report, I have
stated that ''The Borough Solicitor therefore advises that the
consultation process has complied with legal
requirements''.
It is of course possible that a legal
challenge may be brought in relation to Cabinet's decision but then
again every decision which the Council makes is potentially
challengeable in the Courts. I would reiterate that given the very
thorough consultation process which the Council has undertaken, as
set out in Appendix 1, it is my view that it has complied with the
legal principles set out in the Gunning
case."]
In addition, discussion took place on Cabinet
Agenda Item No. 8 -Further Support to Voluntary Organisations
2012/13 Financial Year and the
Labour Group Members of the Committee expressed some concern
regarding the decision to reduce the annual core grant to
...
view the full minutes text for item
33.
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