PART 5Meetings and proceedings

Additional rights of access to documents for members of corporate joint committees and members of principal councils etc.23.

(1)

Any document which is in the possession or under the control of a corporate joint committee and contains material relating to any business to be transacted at a CJC meeting or a meeting of a sub-committee of the corporate joint committee must, subject to paragraphs (2) and (3), be open to inspection at all reasonable hours and free of charge by—

(a)

any member of the corporate joint committee;

(b)

any member of a principal council where a senior executive member of the council is a member of the corporate joint committee;

(c)

any member of a National Park authority where a member of that authority is a member of the corporate joint committee.

(2)

Paragraph (1) does not require the document to be open to inspection if it appears to a proper officer that it discloses exempt information.

(3)

But, despite paragraph (2), paragraph (1) does require the document to be open to inspection if the information is information of a description for the time being falling within—

(a)

paragraph 14 of Schedule 12A to the 1972 Act as applied by regulation 26 (except to the extent that the information relates to any terms proposed or to be proposed by or to the corporate joint committee in the course of negotiations for a contract), or

(b)

paragraph 17 of that Schedule as so applied.

(4)

Where a document is to be open to inspection by a person under paragraph (1) the person may, subject to paragraph (5)—

(a)

make copies of the document or parts of the document, or

(b)

require the corporate joint committee to provide a copy of the document or parts of the document,

upon payment to the corporate joint committee of such reasonable fee as may be required for the facility.

(5)

Paragraph (4) does not require or authorise the doing of any act which infringes the copyright in any work except that, where the owner of the copyright is a corporate joint committee, nothing done in pursuance of that paragraph constitutes an infringement of the copyright.

(6)

The rights conferred by this regulation on a person are in addition to any other rights the person may have apart from this paragraph.

(7)

For the purposes of paragraph (1)(b), “senior executive member” has the meaning given by section 77(4) of the 2021 Act.