modern.gov - View the Democratic Process Online

South Cambs is committed to openness and transparency in the democratic process - and finding information has never been easier! Our system, called modern.gov (This link will open in a new window), has been specially designed for local government use and has been implemented by authorities across the country, including our neighbour, Huntingdonshire District Council.

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Use either the image or link above to open the modern.gov in another browser window. You can then read the instructions on this page and the information on the modern.gov site at the same time, or select one of the links below to go directly to that section of the site.

Once you have opened the modern.gov site, you will see the following menu items on the left-hand side of the screen:

New Publications (This link will open in a new window)

Go here to see newly-published minutes, agendas, decisions or notification of meetings about to happen. You can even filter the results by Committee or by Ward.

Search Documents (This link will open in a new window)

A very comprehensive search facility for all the agendas and minutes for public meetings dating back to January 1997. Check out "Tips for searching" to learn how to get more complete results.

Meetings (This link will open in a new window)

Select a committee for links to meeting dates and documents. When reading the agenda for a meeting, click on the title of an item to view the associated report (the file size is displayed next to the title), or you can view the entire agenda at once by opening the "Agenda Reports Pack" at the top of the webpage.

Forward Plans (This link will open in a new window)

The rolling programme of key decisions to be made by the Council in the four months from the publication date. Plan items are colour-coded according to their status (Approved, Deferred, Called-In*) and linked to the relevant agendas and minutes. You can even filter the plans by Ward to see forthcoming decisions affecting just your area.

Decisions (This link will open in a new window)

A list of recent decisions taken by the Council, Cabinet, committees, Portfolio Holders and Council Officers. This list can be filtered by Decision Status (Approved, Called-In, etc.), Date and Decision Maker.

Committees (This link will open in a new window)

Select a committee to view details of what it does, membership and contact details, Councillors' attendance statistics, minutes and agendas, meeting statistics (how often? how long?) and declarations of interest.

Also under the list of committees is the Councillors' Weekly Bulletin. This contains lots of important information for Councillors and for the public, like forthcoming events in South Cambs, members' annual expense claims, minutes of meetings from this Council and from other authorities and more. The new format, introduced in January 2006, links items in the Bulletin to relevant meetings, agendas, background papers, contact information and external websites.

Your Councillors (This link will open in a new window)

Councillors can be sorted by name, political party or ward, or you can click on Find Councillor and select your village from a list to go directly to information about your local member(s). Councillors' details include contact information, register of interests, committee membership, appointments to outside bodies, meeting attendance statistics, declarations of interests at meetings, and, where relevant, links to other Councillors supporting the same ward.

Parish Councils (This link will open in a new window)

Contact information for Parish Councils.

Elections (This link will open in a new window)

Election results for all Cambridgeshire County Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Parish Council and general elections and by-elections since 2004.

Calendar (This link will open in a new window)

An interactive calendar of meetings open to the public. Clicking on a meeting name will take you to its agenda and minutes, or to a notice of when these will be published. Agendas appear on the website a week before the meeting date so you have at least five clear working days to read the information.

Your MPs (This link will open in a new window) and Your MEPs (This link will open in a new window)

Contact details for South Cambridgeshire's Members of Parliament and the Eastern Region Members of the European Parliament.

Library (This link will open in a new window)

Look here for the Council's Constitution or archived editions of the Councillors' Weekly Bulletin from 2001-5. The Library is also home to the Members' Allowances Scheme and summary of allowances paid each year, guides for members of the public who wish to speak at Council meetings, and committee-specific documents relating to the Scrutiny & Overview and Standards Committees.

More information

To read the reports you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be downloaded for free from www.adobe.co.uk. This format allows the information to be displayed exactly as the author meant it to be seen, and can be used on Windows, Macintosh or any other computer system.

If you have any questions about how to use this new system, please e-mail the Democratic Services team on democratic.services@scambs.gov.uk.

footnote* Called-in: A Cabinet or Portfolio Holder (Cabinet member) decision can be "called-in" or "challenged" by Chairman of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee or by any five Councillors within five working days of the decision's publication. Decisions which are not called-in can be implemented once this "call-in period" has ended, but decisions which are called-in are postponed until the Scrutiny and Overview Committee can investigate. The Scrutiny and Overview Committee can agree with the original decision, after which the decision can be implemented immediately, or make an alternative recommendation and return the issue to Cabinet for further consideration.