Purpose of the Committee
The purpose of the Transport Advisory Committee is to make the most of the knowledge, experience, expertise, and skills of people who work, live and study in Stonnington to provide Council with advice to support the implementation of Council’s Integrated Transport Plan 2020-25 and subordinate documents:
The Committee will:
- Support officers with their advice to Council
- Contribute practical advice to engage the community on issues
- Facilitate stakeholder engagement
- Support quality decision making
- Identify, articulate and respond appropriately to priority, new and emerging issues
- Provide feedback on the delivery of Council’s strategies under the Stonnington Community Plan
The Committee acts in an advisory capacity only and has no delegated authority to make decisions on behalf of Council.
Background
The Transport Advisory Committee is convened to make the most of the knowledge, experience, expertise, and skills of people who work, live and study in Stonnington to provide Council with advice to support the implementation of Council’s Integrated Transport Plan 2020-25 and subordinate documents. Relevant matters covers all modes of transport within Stonnington, however a key focus will be those directly managed by Council including walking, cycling, parking and local road management.
The aims and objectives of the Committee are to:
- Contribute to the development and implementation of relevant Strategies and Action Plans, as appropriate;
- Provide feedback and input into transport initiatives, including programs and infrastructure planning and development; and
- Provide information on general issues pertaining to the achievement of transport objectives within the City of Stonnington.
Composition
The Advisory Committee shall comprise:
- A maximum of two Stonnington Councillors
- Two Council officers, including the Coordinator Transport Planning and the Transport Planner
- Six (6) to ten (10) community representatives
Additional Council staff from across the organisation will be involved in the Committee as required to ensure a whole-of-organisation approach.
The Committee will be convened for a term of two years.
Members are welcome to reapply at the end of their term.
Committee members may resign at any time. Notice of resignation is to be provided in writing to Council staff representatives.
Members of the Committee may be deemed to have resigned if the attend less than 75 percent of meetings in a twelve-month period.
Role and selection of Councillor/s
The role of Councillors is to participate in the meetings, listen to stakeholder and community views (as relevant).
Council will appoint by resolution Councillor representation annually.
Unless otherwise appointed to the Advisory Committee by Council, the Mayor is, by virtue of the Office, an ex officio member of the committee. It is important that whilst the Mayor may not chair these meetings, appropriate recognition should be given to the presence of the Mayor if in attendance.
Councillors who have not been appointed to the Advisory Committee by Council, may attend in an observer role only. The Councillor cannot actively participate in any discussion and may only speak if called upon by the Chair to speak.
Role and selection of Council officer/s
Environment and Infrastructure will be responsible for this Advisory Committee.
Council Officers will provide administrative support and advice to the Committee: Officers will be nominated by the Director Environment and Infrastructure as required to provide advice and administrative support to the Committee.
Where a meeting of the Advisory Committee is considered an ‘informal meeting of councillors’ under Council’s Governance Rules, the relevant Director is responsible for ensuring a Council officer submits the relevant form to Council’s Legal and Governance Department as soon as practicable, so a record of the meeting can be included in the upcoming Council agenda.
Role and selection of external members
Eligible external community representatives will have an interest in and good working knowledge of:
- transport-related issues affecting all transport modes including walking, cycling, micromobility, public transport and shared and private vehicle use
- the relationship between integrated transport and land-use planning
- the link between transport planning and urban design.
Eligible external community representatives will live, work and/or study in Stonnington and have work, personal or volunteer experience across a range of transport areas.
The approach and method for appointing external representatives will include the following:
- Council must resolve external representation is required on the Advisory Committee
- An advertisement may be placed in a newspaper, on Council’s internet site and through local networks
- Applicants must make application via an expression of interest process
- Community members will be selected by a panel comprising of the Director Environment & Infrastructure and two other Council Officers who will assess applicants against selection criteria outlined in the expression of interest process as well as diversity principles.
- The proposed Committee members will be recommended to Council via a report, with Council to make the final determination.
- Members will be appointed for an initial 12-month term with an option to extend for an additional 12 months. From that point onwards, membership will be for a period of two years.
- All members will be eligible to re-apply for appointment, however continuous membership for longer than four years will not be considered.
- Council will be responsible for appointing all Councillor and community members; and
- Casual vacancies which occur due to external members being unable to complete the full term of their appointments may be filled by co-opting suitable candidates from a previous selection process for the remainder of the previous incumbents’ terms. The selection panel will make a recommendation to the Chief Executive Officer or relevant Director, who will have the authority to appoint the recommended candidate to the committee for the remainder of the previous incumbent’s term.
External community representatives unable to attend a committee meeting are not able to nominate a proxy.
Meetings
Meeting schedule
Meetings will be held on a quarterly basis and an annual schedule of meetings will be agreed upon at the first meeting of the Advisory Committee in each year.
Additional meetings may be scheduled from time to time as needed.
Meeting procedure
Meetings will follow standard meeting procedure protocols, which are in summary:
- Commence on time and conclude by the stated completion time
- Be scheduled and confirmed in advance with all relevant papers distributed (as appropriate) to each member
- Encourage fair and reasonable discussion, participation and respect for each other’s views
- Focus on the relevant issues at hand; and
- Provide advice to Council as far as possible on a consensus basis.
As this is an Advisory Committee, voting on issues is not required. Any recommendations will generally be developed through consensus. Where a matter cannot be agreed the differing opinions should be clearly expressed in the notes of the meeting.
Role and selection of the Chairpersons
Chair responsibilities are to be shared between a Stonnington Councillor and a community representative in a co-share arrangement. The co-chair positions are to be agreed to by all members and will be for a term of 12 months. The co-chair positions shall be reviewed annually, immediately following Councillor appointments to committees.
Election of Co-Chairs
- The Council officer responsible for the Advisory Committee must facilitate the election of the Co-Chairs
- At the first meeting of the Advisory Committee, the Council officer will invite nominations for the Co-Chairs
- Voting must be carried out by show of hands
Voting Process
- If a lot is conducted, the Council Officer will have the conduct of the lot and the following provisions will apply:
- each candidate will draw one (1) lot
- the order of drawing lots will be determined by the alphabetical order of the surnames of the candidates who received an equal number of votes except that if two (2) or more such candidates surnames are identical, the order will be determined by the alphabetical order of the candidates first names; and
- as many identical pieces of paper as there are candidates who received an equal number of votes must be placed in a receptacle
- If the lot is being conducted to determine who is a defeated candidate, the word "Defeated" shall be written on one of the pieces of paper, and the candidate who draws the paper with the word "Defeated" written on it must be declared the defeated candidate (in which event a further vote must be taken on the remaining candidates unless there is only one candidate remaining, in which case that candidate will be declared to have been duly elected)
- After the election of the Chairperson is determined, the Chairperson must take the Chair and preside over the remainder of the meeting.
If the Chairperson is not present at a meeting, any other person who has been appointed to the Advisory Committee shall be appointed Chairperson.
Public attendance at meetings
The Advisory Committee is not required to give public notice of its meetings and its meetings are not open to the public.
The Committee may invite observers to meetings from time to time. This is at the discretion of the Chairperson.
Guests may also be invited to attend and participate at meetings, this would generally be for a specific purpose and/or specified period of time. This is at the discretion of the Co-Chairs.
Reports, agendas and notes
An agenda will be electronically circulated by officers to all Advisory Committee members not less than 48 hours prior to each meeting.
Notes of the meetings may be taken by a Council officer. If notes are taken the draft notes must be:
- submitted to the Chairperson for confirmation within 10 working days of the meeting;
- distributed to all Committee members following confirmation from the Co-Chairs; and
- submitted to the next meeting of the Committee for information.
The notes must:
- contain details of the proceedings and recommendations made
- be clearly expressed
- be self-explanatory
- incorporate relevant reports or a summary of the relevant reports considered by the committee; and
- be provided to Committee members as soon as practicable after the meeting.
The notes will be endorsed by the Advisory Committee at the subsequent meeting.
Agendas and notes from meetings are not required to be made available to the public, unless required by law or Council’s Public Transparency Policy.
Budget and resources
The Advisory Committee has no budgetary allocation from Council (this includes budget for the payment of fees for external members or presenters).
Any budgetary allocation is at the absolute discretion of the relevant Director who is responsible for the Advisory Committee.
Conflicts of Interest
In performing the role of Advisory Committee member, a person must:
- Act with integrity
- Impartially exercise his or her responsibilities in the interests of the local community
- Not improperly seek to confer an advantage or disadvantage on any person
- Treat all persons with respect and have due regard to the opinions, beliefs, rights and responsibilities of other persons
- Commit to regular attendance at meetings; and
- Not make improper use of information acquired because of their position or release information that the member knows, or should reasonably know, is confidential information
Councillors and Council officers are required to disclose conflicts of interest in accordance with Part 6, Division 2 of the Local Government Act 2020 (Vic) and Chapter 5 of the Governance Rules.
Where an external community member has a conflict of interest or perceived conflict of interest in relation to a matter before the committee, the community member must disclose the matter to the group before the matter is considered or discussed. The external community member must then leave the meeting until the matter is dealt with. Disclosure must include the nature of the interest and be recorded in the meeting notes.
Compliance
Committee members must abide by Council’s policies, plans and strategies when conducting themselves in relation any functions of the Advisory Committee.
Media enquiries
Contact with the Media by Committee members will be conducted in accordance with the Media Policy.
External members should defer any media enquiries to the Manager Communications and Engagement.
Review and evaluation
The Terms of Reference of the Committee will be reviewed 24 months after the inception of the Committee to ensure it is operating effectively.
More information
View the Transport Advisory Committee Terms of Reference, or call our Coordinator of Transport Planning on 03 8290 1333 for more information.