25.Section 7 requires the authority to hold (and be represented at) a public meeting about the relevant proposal during the consultation period and to give advance notice of its date, time and place to the relevant consultees (if that has not already been done by way of the notice of the proposal given or issued at the outset of the consultations, under section 6(3)(c)) and to HMIE.
26.Section 7(4) provides that a public meeting may focus on more than one proposal so long as all the proposals covered at the meeting have been included in the same proposal paper.