10. Petitions for debate at a Council meeting
If a petition contains more than 1500 signatures it will be discussed by a meeting of the council unless it is a petition asking for a senior council employee to give evidence at a public meeting . The council will endeavour to consider the petition at its next meeting, although on some occasions this may not be possible and consideration will then take place at the following meeting. The petition organiser will be given five minutes to present the petition at the meeting and the petition will then be discussed by the Chair and councillors for a maximum period of 15 minutes (unless the council decides to extend this period at the meeting). The council will decide how to respond to the petition at this meeting, it may decide to:
- take the action the petition requests
- not to take the action requested for reasons put forward in the debate
- make recommendations to the Leader or Chief Executive if the issue is one for either if them to make the decision
- commission further investigation into the matter, for example by a relevant committee.
The petition organiser will receive written confirmation of this decision and this will also be published on our website.