Current Online Petitions
Introduction to Petitions to Rotherham MBC
Petitions to the Council must include:
- A clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition which state what action the petitioners wish the Council to take.
- The subject matter of the petition must relate to a function of the Council, or its partner authorities if the petition relates to an improvement in the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of the District which a partner authority could contribute to. Petitions may also relate to matters which are sub-regional and cross-authority.
- The petition should contain the name, address and signature of at least 20 people who either are resident, work or study in the borough of Rotherham. This includes under 18 year olds.
The council welcomes petitions which are created and submitted through our website below. Online petitions must follow the same guidelines outlined above. The petition organiser will need to provide us with their name and email address. You will also need to decide how long you would like your petition to be open for signing.
When you create an online petition, it may take five working days before it is published online. This is because we have to check that the content of your petition is suitable before it is made available for the public to sign. If we feel we cannot publish your petition for some reason, we will contact you within this time to explain why. You will then be able to change and re-submit your petition if you wish.
When an online petition has closed for signing, it will automatically be submitted to Democratic Services in the same way as a paper petition, you will receive an acknowledgement within five working days.
Paper petitions should be accompanied by the contact details of the lead petitioner, including an address and/or telephone/email details. This is the person the Council will contact to explain the process for considering petitions. The contact details of the lead petitioner or any of the petitioners will not be published by the Council. If the petition does not identify a lead petitioner, we will contact signatories to the petition to agree who should act as the lead petitioner.
Under the current Petition Scheme, the Council can accept and process online petitions hosted on other platforms e.g. Change.Org as long it is possible to see the name and a valid email address, postal address and postcode for each signatory. For example, whilst Change.Org require those wishing to sign petitions on their website to set up an account and fields are provided for a name, valid email address and postal address at that point this information cannot be seen when the petition is submitted to the Council as the “decision maker”. Only the name, town, postcode and country are supplied for each signatory where these have been registered. Change.Org have advised that the full email and postal addresses of anyone signing a Change.Org petition cannot be made available to the Council (or any other organisation) as the “decision maker” unless a signatory changes the privacy default setting on their account to allow this.
There are some other differences between the Council’s online petition facility and the Change.Org facility. These include a facility for the lead petitioner and other Change.Org users to promote the petition to other people by way of donation and via social media. There is also a facility on Change.Org for the lead petitioner to provide an update to everyone who has signed the petition and a facility for signatories to the petition to leave a comment on the issue – these options are not currently available on the Council’s online petition facility provided by mod.gov. In addition the petition organiser on Change.Org can print off a hard copy of the petition at any point showing the name, town, country and post code for every signatory, before it is submitted to the decision maker. Again this is not a facility available under the Council’s online petition platform where the petition is submitted electronically when it closes for signatures. It is however, possible for the lead petitioner to print off a hard copy listing just the names of each signatory and the Council, as decision maker, is able to see all the information for each signatory.
ADVICE FOR ANYONE SIGNING OR SUBMITTING A PETITION - Please note the page will autorefresh after 10 minutes.
