In this section you can access a wide range of information and documents relating to the council’s decision making processes, find out about forthcoming Council meetings and decisions, how to submit questions at certain meetings and obtain details for your local political representatives.

Committee meeting information

Information regarding Council, Cabinet and committee meetings. You can find the agendas, minutes of previous meetings, as well as officer reports discussed at previous meetings. Information is also provided on dates of future meetings, and issues that will be discussed in future.

Elected representatives

The Council has 51 Councillors who are elected to represent you. This is made up as follows:

• Labour - 19
• Conservative - 16
• Independent - 5
• Liberal Democrat - 4
• Green Party - 2
• Reform UK - 2
• Non-aligned - 3

To find out who represents you and how to contact them, please see our Councillors Directory. This directory will also show you:

• The Ward they represent;
• Membership of Scrutiny Committees, Working Parties or Task & Finish Groups;
• If they are a Cabinet Member;
• Whether they are registered with any Outside Bodies; and
• Details of this council’s MPs and councillors.

How to get involved

The Council encourages and actively supports the public getting involved in its work to serve the Council’s area. The Council wants to make it easy for people to get involved and give their views to help influence and develop what the Council does and the decisions it takes. For more information on public participation see Part 1 of the Constitution.

Members of the public are able to speak meetings of the Full Council, Scrutiny Committees, Planning and Regultory Committees in accordance with set procedures. Please check the latest procedure rules for the relevant meeting set out in the Constitution as these may have been updated or amended.

You can access and sign current ePetitions submitted to this Council, as well as accessing information on ePetitions that have already been completed.

It is also possible to subscribe to updates in order to receive information via e-mail regarding particular issues and committee meetings.

Outside bodies

Contact details for the council representatives on outside bodies and forums that are independent from the council.

Decisions

Information regarding the decisions taken by Cabinet, committees, etc, as well as officer delegated decisions taken by council officers.

The Constitution

Our Constitution sets out how the Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people. Some of these processes are required by the law, while others are a matter for the Council to choose.

At its meeting on 12th December 2024, the Council considered a report on a new Constitution for the Council. At that meeting it resolved:
1. That the whole of the proposed new Constitution set out at Appendix 1 to the submitted report, subject to a minor alteration to Part 2, Section 3, paragraph 3.35 regarding the duration of meetings shall be four and a half hours after the commencement of the meeting, be approved.
2. That the whole of the new Constitution, except all those provisions relating to changes to the number of committees, the sizes of committees plus the quorum requirements for these, the change of name for Development Control Committee to Planning Committee and the creation of a Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, to have effect on 1 January 2025, be approved.
3. That all those provisions in the new Constitution relating to the number of committees, the sizes of committees plus the quorum requirements for these, the change of name for Development Control Committee to Planning Committee and the creation of a Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the numbers of Members allocated to Committees be adopted at the Annual Council in May 2025, be approved.

To view documents in pdf format you will require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.