Nottingham City Council's Constitution

Nottingham City Council has agreed this Constitution which sets out the Council’s governance arrangements. These describe how the Council conducts its business, how decisions are made, who can make them and what rules and procedures must be followed to ensure those decisions are well-informed, efficiently taken, transparent and accountable to local people. Some of the processes are required by law, while others have been decided by the Council.

The Council will exercise all its powers and duties in accordance with the law and this Constitution. If the law differs from this Constitution, the law takes precedence. The Constitution helps the Council to take good, well informed decisions for our city.

The Constitution can only be amended by Full Council (with some limited exceptions).

The following 19 documents make up our Constitution. To read please click on the following link to download the file.

• Article 1 - This Constitution
• Article 2 - How the Council Works
• Article 3 - Citizens
• Article 4 - Councillors
• Article 5 - Officers
• Article 6 - Councillor-Officer Protocol
• Article 7 - Decision Making
• Article 8 - Budget and Policy Framework
• Article 9 - Non-executive Functions and Committees
• Article 10 - Executive Arrangements
• Article 11 - Overview and Scrutiny
• Article 12 - Standing Orders
• Article 13 - Access to Information
• Article 14 - Officer Employment
• Article 15 - Councillor Code of Conduct
• Article 16 - Employee Code of Conduct
• Article 17 - Financial Regulations
• Article 18 - Contract Procedure Rules
• Article 19 - Council Companies

Sitting alongside the Constitution are the Governance Framework Documents. These documents provide more detailed information on aspects of the Constitution and are referred to through the main documents.

The Governance Framework Documents contain information that may be updated frequently. They do not require the approval of Full Council to be updated unless stated within the document itself. 

The following documents comprise our Governance Framework Documents. To read please click on the following link to download the file.

• GFD A - Policy on Filming and Recording Public Meetings
• GFD B - Petitions Scheme
• GFD C - Members' Allowances Scheme
• GFD D - Senior Management Structure
• GFD E - Proper Officers
• GFD F - Statutory Officers
• GFD G - Delegations to Officers
• GFD H - Trust and Charities Scheme of Delegation
• GFD I - Executive Committee Appointments
• GFD J - Non-Executive Committee Appointments
• GFD K - Call-in Guidance
• GFD L - Proportional Allocation of Council Questions
• GFD M - Disciplinary Procedure against Statutory Governance Officers
• GFD N - Companies Governance Handbook