Agenda item

Councillor Grewal vacated the chair and left the meeting.  Councillor Basharat took the chair for this item.  Councillors Haines and Munkley also left the meeting prior to the commencement of this item.

The Deputy Borough Solicitor reminded the Committee that it had not been possible for Officers to fully respond to some of the questions submitted by Councillor Stokes on this matter due to the loss of two files on the Castleview site by the Council’s consultants, Drivers Jonas.  However, the files had been located on 12^th January, 2009 and passed back to the Council later that day.  Given the large amount of information within those files and the fact that the Officer responsible for preparing responses was involved in a sustainability audit this week, it had not been possible to prepare replies in time for this meeting.  Accordingly, Officers were recommending that the item be deferred until a later meeting to enable full responses to be prepared from the information contained within the recovered files. 

It was moved by Councillor Basharat and seconded by Councillor Matloob that further consideration of this matter be deferred until the meeting of the Committee taking place on 26^th February, 2009 so as to give Officers sufficient time to prepare responses to the relevant questions submitted by Councillor Stokes.  This proposal was put to the vote with three Members voting in favour and three against.  The Chair used his casting vote in favour of the motion. 

Councillor Stokes was given the opportunity to address the Committee and expressed concern at the loss of the files and suggested that the way in which Council files were handed over to other parties should be examined.  The Strategic Director of Resources stated that the consultants had fully accepted that they were in possession of the files and that they had mislaid them. Councillor Stokes advised that he may not be able to attend the meeting on 26^th February.

Councillor Coad requested that her objection to the Committee’s decision to defer this matter be placed on record as she would be unable to attend the meeting on 26^th February and given that three Members were debarred by having declared a prejudicial interest, she did not believe that proper scrutiny of this matter would take place.

Resolved -   That this matter be deferred until the meeting taking place on Thursday, 26^th February, 2009 to enable Officers to prepare further responses to previously asked questions, based upon information contained within the recovered files, and that the Committee decide at that meeting whether any further scrutiny of this matter is required.

(Councillors Grewal and Munkley rejoined the meeting.)