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03 01 Report submission Cabinet reports and Committee reports The deadline by which draft reports should be circulated for

comment and final submission deadlines to Democratic Services (Democracy@lambeth.gov.uk) are published on the website under the agenda management link for Cabinet and each committee here. Cabinet: The published deadlines enable: Five working days for the clearance of reports by obligatory officers and the Cabinet Member Consideration by Informal Cabinet (if necessary). Publication on the Cabinet Planning deadline (CE and Strategic Directors), which is held on a Tuesday morning (9am). Report authors will be advised that morning if any changes to the report are needed as a result of the Cabinet Planning meeting, and before publication on the Cabinet agenda. Publication of the Cabinet agenda with the statutory five clear days notice.

Committee reports: The published deadlines enable: Five working days for the clearance of reports by obligatory officers and the Cabinet Member Agenda preparation by Democratic Services, in consultation with the Chair (as necessary). Publication of the Cabinet agenda with the statutory five clear days notice.

Cabinet Member and Officer delegated decision reports: Similar consultation requirements to committee reports apply in respect of reports to be published on the councils website for five clear days before the decision is taken:

All officer and individual cabinet member key decisions All officer and individual cabinet member non-key decisions involving resources between 100,000 and 500,000. Other important or sensitive issues that should be subject to pre-notification in the view of the Cabinet Member or Executive Director concerned.

These requirements are set out in the Constitution (Part 3, Access to Information rule 17). This transparency means the proposed decision may therefore be subject to scrutiny by members and/or the public. Any representations received must be considered by the decision-maker before the decision is taken. Appropriate consultation should be carried out with the relevant Cabinet Member and ward councillors (see doc 01 07). The draft report should be sent for Cabinet Member clearance at the same time as seeking corporate finance, democratic services and legal services clearance (as necessary) reports sent to the Cabinet Member should be copied to the Head of Leaders Office (HLO) and relevant policy officer at the same time (who can assist in the report clearance process). The Cabinet Member Children and Families has asked that delegated power reports not be sent to her but emailed instead to Victor Ruskin who will

include these on the weekly CMB meeting agenda. The report author may be required to attend this meeting. Allow five working days. If a response has not been received from the Cabinet Member, silence cannot be taken as agreement. Strategic Directors will of course continue to brief their Cabinet Member(s) on major issues at their regular briefing meetings, and these meetings represent another opportunity to obtain Cabinet Member approval to Officer Delegated Decision (ODD) as well as other reports. Key decisions will be pre-notified by inclusion in the Forward Plan, and officer key decisions and certain non-key decisions will also be pre-notified by inclusion in the officer decisions database, The report on a key decision must include the same information as for key decision items considered by Cabinet: A record of the decision A record of the reasons for the decision Details of any alternative options considered and rejected Details of any declarations of interest/dispensations

Pre-notification of proposed Cabinet Member and officer decisions At least five clear days prior to the decision being taken, your Departmental CCO (see Appendix D) will publish the final cleared (part 1 only) officer report on the public website, and this automatically generates an email notification to: All Members of the Council The Head of Democratic Services & Scrutiny. The Head of the Leaders Office and two Opposition Group offices Governance & Democracy (Democratic Services)

Representations and queries The report author is responsible for answering queries arising from members and the public, and the Democratic Services Manager will vet requests from members to access any part II reports. Any representations made must be considered by the report author and decisionmaker before the decision is taken.. Note on extensions and variations to contracts An extension or variation to a contract will not be logged in Officer Decisions unless the value of that extension or variation itself exceeds the 100k or 500k thresholds. As an example: A contract valued at 1m requires a variation or extension of 90k. Once it has been recommended at the Procurement Board it is treated differently in respect of the Scheme of Delegation and the Democratic process. Under the Scheme of Delegation the value of the decision is calculated by adding the original contract value to the extension or variation so in this case the value would be 1.09m. This meets the Internal Audit requirement on this calculation as then the project officer has to up date the original Purchase Order to make it 1.09m. If a

second Purchase Order was raised (for 90k) this would make it much harder to audit and makes a fraud easier to conceal. However, for pre-publication, the calculation is based on the value of the actual decision. In this case it is based on the value of the extension or variation itself, so the report is not subject to pre-notification or Forward Plan requirements.

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