SSC/RC1/20161124

Paper RC1.2

ITEM 1.2:PROCEEDINGS

Purpose

  1. To agree the election of a Chair and a quorum for the Research Committee.
  1. To agree proceduresfor the publication of minutes and papers.

Discussion

Chair and quorum

  1. At the last Council meeting on 14 September 2016, the Council approved the creation of the Research Committee and agreed that the Chair should be electedby the Committee itself.
  1. It is anticipated that the Council will formally approve that the quorum level alsobe decided by the Committee itself (though the quorummust include the Chair) at the next meeting on 12 December 2016, along with an update to the Council’s standing orders on committees.

Publication of Minutes and Papers

  1. Standing orders for the Scottish Sentencing Council require draft minutes of meetings to be published no later than 15 working days after the meeting (Standing Order 8.2).
  1. In order to allow the Research Committee to feed back to full Council meetings, we recommend that a shorter timescale is adopted and that draft minutes are issued to members for approval no later than five working days after meetings and are published no later than 10 working days after meetings. Draft minutes will then be tabled for approval at the following Research Committee meeting.
  1. The Council’s standing orders indicate that meeting papers which provide legal advice, contain documents in draft, or contain information submitted to the Council in confidence, such as commercially sensitive information in research tenders, will not be published(Standing Order 8.6) Due to the nature of the Committee’s remit, much of its work will fall under these categories. We recommend that the Committee notes this position.

Recommendations

  1. Members are asked to:

a)elect a Chair;

b)agree a quorum (which includes the Chair);

c)agree the arrangements for the publication of minutes as described at para. 6; and,

d)note the types of meeting papers which will not be published online, as described at para 9.

Scottish Sentencing Council Secretariat

November 2016

1