To receive questions from members of the public who may wish to ask a general question of the Mayor, Cabinet Member or the Chairman of a Committee in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 12.
Minutes:
The following public questions had been received:
1. From Mr Smith:
Is RMBC planning and enforcement now so unfit for purpose it needs to be put back into special measures?
Mr Smith was unable to attend the meeting and a written response would be provided.
2. From T:
RMBC have admitted to spending more than £60,000 on legal costs in Information Rights Tribunals.
Will the Leader tell the truth about when he was first informed about the Investigation into Swinton Lock Activity Centre?
T was unable to attend the meeting and a written response would be provided.
3. From Mrs Bader:
At the OSMB meeting on June 5th, the Chair of OSMB promised to discuss the recommendations from the community petition titled "Rotherham’s Commitment to a Permanent Ceasefire and to Promote Peace in Palestine" on July 24th. We seek assurance that this discussion will indeed take place, as it has already been delayed from the originally promised date?
Councillor Steele confirmed that discussion of the petition was on the published agenda for the OSMB meeting on Wednesday 24 July. The lead petitioner had been notified. Councillor Steele advised that any questions that members of the public wanted to ask on the petition should be submitted to governance before the meeting.
In her supplementary question, Mrs Bader stated that she and others had been engaging with the local council since October 2023 with minimal results despite maximum effort. She said that the Council operated inefficiently and made it practically impossible to engage with the processes. Mrs Bader asked if steps would be taken to remedy this issue?
Councillor Steele explained that if discussions regarding the processes and standing orders were required, that would be for the Leader to act upon as part of a working group. He also explained that the petition had been pulled from the agenda of the last OSMB meeting due to the calling of the General Election and the start for purdah. There was no other reason. Councillor Steele reassured Mrs Bader that the petition would be discussed at the meeting on 24 July 2024.
4. Ms Yusufi:
During the community OSMB meetings discussing the Palestine Petition requests, we were informed that the Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council declined to raise the Palestinian flag, citing election purdah. Rotherham residents have been requesting the Council to raise the flag since October of last year. What was your reason since October, before the elections, not to?
The Leader stated that he did not know who had informed Ms Yusufi that a decision had been taken not to fly the flag due to purdah as that was incorrect. The request had been made as part of the petition and the petition was working its way through the Council’s democratic processes. A decision would be taken by Members of OSMB on 24 July about whether they want to recommend that the flag is flow. The recommendations will then be sent to Cabinet Members for consideration. Until then, no decisions have been or will be made regarding flying the Palestinian flag.
Ms Yusufi stated that she had been informed by the Council’s legal officer that the request had been declined by the Leader and the Chief Executive. In her supplementary question, Ms Yusufi stated that during initial discussions with the Council about the Palestine petition, she and others were repeatedly informed that divestment discussions were legally off-limits. However, legal advice had been received indicated that the law does allow for certain divestment actions. She ask if the Leader and Councillors understood the distinction between a clear legal reality and legal advice that is based on an opinion? The experience of those involved in the petition so far suggested that those perspectives were often conflated, with advice being presented as a legal position when it was not. Ms Yusufi stated that there should be reticence on the part of Councillors to investigate that and challenge opinions that might not necessarily be reflective of legal reality.
The Leader explained that the Council’s Monitoring Officer represented the legal opinion to the Council and Councillors were legally obliged to act within the legal advice given to them by the Monitoring Officer. The Leader asked Ms Yusufi to provide any evidence she had that would suggest that the advice provided was not correct and he would consider it. However, in his role as Leader, he had to act within the advice given to him by the Monitoring Officer.
5. Mr Ashraf:
Previously, the Council Leader expressed a commitment to combating antisemitism, emphasising concern for the safety of Jewish community members and the need for the IHRA definition. However, local and national organisations, such as Sheffield Jews Against Israeli Apartheid and Jews For Palestine, have expressly condemned the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Does the Leader not consider their concerns valid?
The Leader stated that this had been covered before. He explained that of course there were people from all different communities that took different views on the IHRA. The Leader had nothing to add to the comments previously made which were that the IHRA was the generally accepted mainstream definition of antisemitism. The Leader wanted to gently suggest to the people who wanted to advocate on behalf of the Palestinian cause, which he supported as he wanted to see progress for the Palestinian people and progress towards a Palestinian State, that conflating it in someway with what was or was not acceptable to say about Jewish people did not help move the cause any further forward. The Council would be staying with the IHRA definition, and the Leader hoped that progress would be made in terms of the petition. He did not think it was helpful for the Council to be sidetracked into discussions around definitions.
In his supplementary Mr Ashraf stated that the point being made was that criticism of Israel was not criticism against Jewish people. He also referenced the Leaders comments at the last meeting about protection and safety of residents. Ms Ashraf asked for parity in the treatment of all groups. He also asked what steps the Council had taken to protect Muslim residents of whom there was a significant population in Rotherham and who have been experiencing a rise in Islamophobia?
The Leader explained that there was no equivalent definition of Islamophobia and that was a matter of some contention and discussion nationally around the best way of taking forward those definitional questions. The Leader confirmed that the Community Safety team worked very closely with people in the Muslim community when they are affected by discriminatory behaviour and actions that would endanger them. Steps were taken in the budget agreed in February 2024 to bring in additional resources to support people who might be affected by that, including people from the Muslim community. If there were issues that the Council needed to be made aware of, the Leader asked that he was happy to receive representations. He reiterated that concerns were taking been seriously.