Background information

In accordance with The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 and The Local Authorities (Petitions) (England) Order 2010, the Council has a duty to respond to petitions and to operate a scheme for handling petitions that are made to the Authority to which the duty applies.

The Act provides that a local authority's petition scheme must as a minimum include the following:

(a)       anyone who lives, works or studies in the local authority area, including under 18's, can sign or organise a petition and trigger a response;

(b)       petitions must be acknowledged within a time period specified by the local authority;

(c)        among the many possible steps that the local authority may choose to take in response to a petition, the following steps must be included in the scheme:

• give effect to the request in the petition;
• consider the petition at a meeting of the Council;
• hold an inquiry;
• hold a public meeting;
• commission research;
• give a written response to the petition organiser setting out the Council's views about the request in the petition;
• refer the petition to a committee of the Council with power under or by virtue of any enactment to review or scrutinise decisions made, or other action taken, in connection with the discharge of any functions of the authority.

The Council will respond to all the petitions it receives, providing that the petition follows the guidelines set out in the Scheme, and is not discriminatory about an excluded matter.

Petitions with a significant level of support will trigger a debate of the full Council:

• the debate may be added to the agenda of a normal meeting of the full Council;
• the debate should conclude with a decision being taken by the full Council. This could be a decision to take the action the petition requests, not to take the action requested for reasons put forward in the debate, or to commission further investigation into the matter, for example by a relevant committee;
• the Scheme provides that the petition organiser will be given five minutes to present the petition at the meeting and the petition will then be discussed by the Council for a maximum of 15 minutes before a decision is taken on the response.

Councils can determine the threshold for debate locally but it must be no higher than 5 per cent of the local population using the estimate of the population of the area contained in the Registrar General's population estimates for England and Wales published by the Office for National Statistics.

This threshold should, the guidance states, be expressed in the scheme as a simple figure so that people know the number of signatures they need to trigger a debate.

The Council's scheme has a threshold of 2%, rounded to the nearest 10, which on the basis of the current estimate of population (75,600) equates to 1,510 signatures. 

The Scheme also allows for petitions to trigger a senior Council employee to attend a meeting of an overview and scrutiny committee of the Council, and answer questions about their work.

The Council has discretion to determine which of its officers are liable to be called to give evidence at a meeting, but the Scheme ensures that as a minimum the head of paid service (the Chief Executive) and the statutory chief officers can be required to attend such a meeting when requested to do so by a petition which contains the requisite number of signatures set out in the Scheme.

The Council's Scheme has a threshold of 0.50% for such petitions, again rounded to the nearest 10, this equates to 380 signatures. 

In addition to the required officers, Directors and Heads of Service can be included in the category of officers liable to be called to give evidence.

The thresholds have been set at these relatively low levels in order that the rural areas of the Borough are not disadvantaged, there being a higher density of population in the urban areas.

The Council can choose to verify the signatures given on a petition if it so wishes. A signature counts if (and only if) the petition gives the signatory's name and address (which may be an address where the signatory lives, works or studies).

The Local Authorities (Petitions) ( England ) Order 2010, specifies particular matters which are excluded from the duty to respond to petitions. These are:

• any matters relating to planning decisions, including about a development plan document;
• any matters relating to licensing decisions; or
• any other matter relating to an individual or entity in respect of which that individual or entity has a right of recourse to a review or right of appeal conferred by or under any enactment (other than the right to complain to the Commission for Local Administration - commonly known as the Local Government Ombudsman).

Failure to deliver services in these areas however remains within the scope of the duty. For example, a petition on an individual planning application is excluded from the duty but a petition about the Council's failure to deliver an effective service for planning applications would be within scope.

Petition organisers can prompt a review of the Council's response by its overview and scrutiny function if the response is felt to be inadequate.