Emma Jackman (Head of Legal Services) and Councillor Stoneman (Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Governance) presented the Appeal Against Petition Response to Members and highlighted the following key points:

 

(a)   the report contained in the agenda was in relation to an appeal submitted following a petition that was debated at Council on 30 January 2023 in relation to the Armada Way Trees. The Committee was asked to consider the appeal and determine whether the response from Full Council was appropriate, or not; the petition submitted had over 5000 signatures and therefore under the guidance, the officers were required to forward it on to Full Council for debate;

 

(b)  the appeal was appended at the report; the rules required it to go to the next available committee which was this meeting (22 February 2023 scrutiny). The petition guidance was appended at page 63 onwards – paragraph 2 outlined what a petition must include – paragraph 3 detailed the acceptance of the petition and its validity – paragraph 4 listed possible responses to a petition – paragraph 6  required that where a petition had over 5000 signatures there was an automatic referral to Full Council for debate;

 

(c)   on receipt the petition was checked for signatures and numbers in order to determine where it should be dealt with – this was undertaken by an officer plotting the postcodes and determining if they were in a reasonable area in terms of Plymouth city (such as commuting areas). It was submitted to Full Council with further information which was included as part of the email, however that was not included in the text on the online petition. When the petition was referred to, it was what was included, what people were reading and signing in support of – as such, the word document that accompanied the petition was not included in the papers because it didn’t form part of the petition that people were asked to sign in support of. However, at Full Council, the petitioner had 5 minutes to present the case to Members and make any additional representations;

 

(d)  Members were advised that STRAW Plymouth (Save the TRees of Armada Way) had sent an email to the Committee; the Head of Legal Services highlighted the following in response to points raised in the email:

 

i.              on 14 February 2023, STRAW Plymouth were informed by email by the Head of Legal Services at 18.34pm that the appeal against the petition response was on the agenda for the 22 February 2023 Performance, Finance and Customer Focus Overview and Scrutiny Committee – a hyperlink to the agenda was also provided. They were aware in good time that the report attached as part of the agenda was to be submitted and were aware of the nature of the report;

 

ii.             as the petition had 5000 signatures it meant that it was an automatic referral to Full Council – officers could not make any other decision other than to refer the petition to Full Council for full debate. The petition appeal and subsequent correspondence referred to the fact that they request a referendum however it wasn’t within officers gift to do anything other than refer the petition to Full Council, as made clear in the petition guidance;

 

iii.            reference was made in the email to an appeal submitted to the Head of Legal Services on 30 January 2023 in advance of the Full Council meeting; this was rejected on the basis that, paragraph 6 of the petitions guidance set out that the appeal was against the response and the response was to be formed by Full Council after debate. As such the response to the petitioners was that in advance of any decision by Full Council, there was no response to the petition to appeal and the appeal wouldn’t be taken forward at that point;

 

iv.            in terms of the briefing paper, it was appropriate that officers prepared a briefing paper for Committee in order to give Members the facts in terms of the history of the matter and the governance arrangements;

 

(e)  in terms of what was available before Committee, this was the same as was available before Full Council. Members needed to be mindful that if they were to look at the recommendations made by Full Council then all Committee could do was to make further recommendations to Cabinet. The carrying out of the development at Armada Way was a function of Cabinet and therefore all committee could do was to make further recommendations for consideration.

 

Councillor Penberthy advised Members that the item for consideration was an appeal of the process and therefore wasn’t going to open the entire petition up for debate as it was already debated by Full Council. It was highlighted that the 7 items as raised as the key matters of the appeal would be considered one at a time.

 

Members discussed the following –

 

Point 1 of the appeal: “The wording of my petition could not be more precise about the number of trees to be saved because, when it went online, that information had not been made public by the council. The data about the number of trees to be felled, being Environmental Information under the Environmental Information Regulations should (under the Council’s duty to be proactive in publishing environmental information) have been made publically available by the Council sometime prior to the petition being launched.  Specific figures could then have been included in the petition wording”:

 

(f)    that those compiling the petition were not legal experts and that the ethos and spirit of the wording of the petition was clear in that it portrayed what the petitioner was trying to convey regardless of if additional wording was or was not included in the petition itself – it was considered that the appeal was submitted because the Council hadn’t honoured or respected the several thousand signatures on the petition; it was responded, after having sought clarification from the Head of Legal Services, that the petition was submitted with an accompanying word document that didn’t form part of the petition but that the petition wording was included with no amendment;

 

(g)   that point one of the appeal highlighted that the wording contained within the petition couldn’t be more precise because data which should have been  available wasn’t available; it was responded that the petitioner had 5 minutes to address Full Council and add to anything which was already included in the original petition submitted;

 

Point 2 of the appeal: “The petitioner and the 12,000 petition signatories have therefore all been severely prejudiced by the failure of the Council to make this data publically available as it should have been”:

 

(h)  it was considered that it appeared to be accurate that the petitioner was prejudiced because the full information wasn’t available to them;

 

Point 3 of the appeal: “Most petitions, particularly when involving such a large and complex issue will not at the outset be able to be drafted so as to cover an issue in precise legalistic language. The interests of the 12,000 people who have signed the petition have been prejudiced by an overly narrow interpretation of the terms of Petitions Guidance Clause 8 of the Constitution, the sole purpose of which Clause is to allow the concerns of those living in the city to be aired further in an appropriate way”:

 

(i)    it was highlighted that those who submitted the appeal were lay people who were not familiar with the appeals process and that the interpretation of the rules could go any number of ways and that this was an issue of confidence and interaction with elected members;

 

Point 4 of the appeal: “The lodging of a petition of this size could have been welcomed as an opportunity to fully engage with the public through the means requested in the petition submission – for example, a public meeting. The only reason why the Council might want to rely on an overly legalistic response to the wording of the petition is to shut down proper public debate on this controversial issue. Had the Council wished to construe the Petition Submission in a less restrictive way and in line with the purpose behind Clause 8 of its Constitution, it could have done so”:

 

(j)    it was considered that this was based on the fact that the Council made one decision regarding the route for the petition to take other than considering the range of routes available;

 

(k)  it was considered that this point of the appeal linked back to page 64 of the agenda pack, section 4.1 of the petition guidance, where a number of avenues were detailed that could be given to a petition of this size such as a referendum, a public consultation etc. There was agreement that there were more avenues for a response than the Council had opted to select; it was responded by the Head of Legal Services that when a petition was received by the Council it was checked for the number of signatures and this number would determine the route of the consideration of the petition for a response. Paragraph 6 of the petition guidance was relevant as the petition received had over 5000 signatures therefore for a response to be formed the petition must be submitted to Full Council for debate. It was then open to Full Council to determine the response. Paragraph 4 did list a number of responses however this wasn’t an exhaustive list and a list by which a decision maker was compelled to follow, but the position that the appropriate decision maker make as a response. The petition should have gone to Full Council for debate as it did, and for Full Council to determine the response;

 

(l)    it was considered that section 4.1 whilst being a list of options was superseded by section 6 if a petition received more than 5000 signatures, as was the case in this situation; this was confirmed by the Head of Legal Services;

 

(m) It was challenged that the scenarios listed at section 4.1 such as a public consultation could have been put forward by the Cabinet Member at the Full Council meeting in order to be open and transparent; it was responded that Members in the Full Council meeting had the opportunity to put forward proposals they saw fit during the debate;

 

(n)  the Council was relatively new to dealing with petitions as very few were received. It was highlighted that section 6.2 demonstrated that the Council had wide ranging powers to respond as long as it was legal;

 

(o)  the possible options listed at section 4.1 was not an exhaustive list and were not listed in a priority order;

 

(p)  it was considered that the Council lowered the level of signatures required in order for the decision to be debated by Council;

 

Point 5 of the appeal: “There is a clear conflict of interest in the Council dealing with the Petition Submission when the Petition relates to the Council’s decisions and behaviour”:

 

(q)  clarity was sought on this being a matter of law and who was supreme in any one decision and at which point the council was able to make decisions; it was responded that the Armada Way scheme was a cabinet function and Cabinet or Cabinet Member was responsible for the decision; it was appropriate that Full Council considered the scheme as Full Council wasn’t the decision maker;

 

(r)   clarification was sought that the Armada Way Scheme was primarily a Cabinet decision; it was responded by the Head of Legal Services that the scheme fell under the Transforming Cities Fund and was agreed by Cabinet as part of the funding;

 

Point 6 of the appeal: “In order to deal properly with this controversial project, the Council meeting on 30 January 2023 should have been given the opportunity to consider the full range of responses allowed in Petition Guidance Clause 4 of its Constitution, (and which are options available even where there are only 25 signatories) and which were requested in the Petition submission. The very narrow way that the Council has construed and dealt with this petition is severely damaging to public confidence in local democracy”:

 

(s)   one viewpoint expressed was that had the process been more transparent with regards to the options open to the Council, Members may have taken a different route so this comment was agreed with;

 

Point 7 of the appeal: “My concerns over this have been proven to be correct. Because of the way you have narrowly interpreted Clause 8, and the clear conflict of interests that has arisen, it has resulted in an ill-thought-out, rushed, defective and valueless public engagement exercise with a poorly drafted questionnaire and the withholding of information so that community groups cannot properly engage. If my petition had been properly dealt with by the Council, people in the city could now be taking part in a full public meeting, a proper, meaningful and thorough consultation (including an Equalities Impact Assessment) and a referendum on the question of whether the felling of the trees should go ahead”:

 

(t)   it was considered that there were lessons to be learned from this petition appeal as it was a complex issue therefore it might be beneficial to form a sub group to consider issues raised at the meeting today, specifically to consider the policy around petitions but also the appeal process;

 

(u)  it was considered that it would have been beneficial for all Members of full council to have had a private briefing as to the rules and regulations of the petition options and routes in order to aid a meaningful debate and to restore public confidence and faith;

 

(v)   It was questioned if petition guidance was attached to the paperwork submitted to Full Council when the petition was submitted; it was responded that petition guidance was contained within the constitution and that going forward, paperwork linked to petitions would have the guidance appended or hyperlinked;

 

(w) it was acknowledged that there was a requirement for Members to look at whether details of the constitution were fit for purpose and suggested that the Monitoring Officer worked with the Audit and Governance Committee to look at the section of the consultation and review it to make sure some of the questions and misunderstandings around this didn’t happen again in order for local democracy to be effective;

 

(x)  discussed the benefit for a sub group of the Audit and Governance Committee to look at the policy and legislation linked to petitions;

 

(y)    Members considered if it would be wise to request an extension of time for the Armada Way project.

 

The Committee agreed that:

 

1.    to mandate the Monitoring Officer to work in conjunction with the Audit and Governance Committee to establish a sub group to review the petitions process as contained within the Council’s Constitution in order to learn lessons moving forward;

 

2.    to recommend to the Audit and Governance Committee, as part of their overall review of the Constitution, consider specifically the consultation and engagement approach and processes linked to petitions so that they were clearly defined and understood;

 

3.    that the Cabinet Member for Transport write to the Parliamentary Minister for Transport requesting an extension to the programme of works/ funding for the Armada Way Development Scheme