Petitions submitted to us must include:
- a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition - it should state what action the petitioners wish the council to take
- the name and address of any person supporting the petition
Petitions should be accompanied by contact details, including an address, for the petition organiser. This is the person we'll contact to explain how we'll respond to the petition. The contact details of the petition organiser will not be placed on the website. If the petition does not identify a petition organiser, we'll contact signatories to the petition to agree who should act as the petition organiser.
Petitions which are considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate will not be accepted.
In the period immediately before an election or referendum we may need to deal with your petition differently. If this is the case we'll explain the reasons and discuss the revised timescale which will apply.
If a petition does not follow the guidelines set out, we may decide not to do anything further with it. In that case, we'll write to you to explain the reasons.
If you'd like to present your petition to us, or would like your councillor or someone else to present it on your behalf, please contact the director of legal services at least 10 working days before the meeting and they'll talk you through the process.
Full council meetings
If you've requested a full council debate and your petition has received 7,500 signatures or more it will be scheduled for a full council debate. If this is the case we'll let you know which meeting of the council the petition will be debated. Full council meetings take place on a 6 weekly basis.
This means that the issue raised in the petition will be discussed at a meeting which all councillors can attend. The petition organiser will be given 5 minutes to present the petition at the meeting and the petition will then be discussed by councillors for a maximum of 15 minutes.
We'll decide how to respond to the petition at this meeting. We may decide to take the action the petition requests, not to take the action requested for reasons put forward in the debate, or to commission further investigation into the matter, for example by a relevant committee.
Where the issue is one on which the council executive are required to make the final decision, we'll decide whether to make recommendations to inform that decision. The petition organiser will receive written confirmation of this decision. This confirmation will also be published on our website.
Officer evidence
Your petition may ask for a senior council officer to give evidence at a public meeting about something for which the officer is responsible as part of their job. For example, your petition may ask a senior council officer to explain progress on an issue, or to explain the advice given to elected members to enable them to make a particular decision.
If your petition contains at least 3,750 signatures, the relevant chief officer (or their nominee) will give evidence at a public meeting of the council’s appropriate improvement and scrutiny committee. Chief officers that can be called to give evidence:
- Emma Alexander, strategic director of commissioning, communities and policy
- Jane Parfrement, strategic director for children's services
- Helen Jones, strategic director of adult care
- Mike Ashworth, strategic director of economy, transport and environment
You should be aware that the improvement and scrutiny committee may decide that it would be more appropriate for another officer to give evidence instead of any officer named in the petition. For instance if the named officer has changed jobs.
The committee may also decide to call the relevant councillor, usually the cabinet member or where appropriate the local councillor, to attend the meeting.
Committee members will ask the questions at this meeting, but you'll be able to suggest questions to the chair of the committee by contacting the improvement and scrutiny manager up to 3 working days before the meeting.