Attending meetings
Meetings are held in public and you are welcome to attend and observe. Full Council meetings are filmed and available to watch from a few days after the meeting.
Meeting dates and start times are on the calendar.
Meetings are held in the Town Hall.
You do not have to attend the whole meeting. You may attend only for the item(s) are interested in.
On rare occasions the meeting will agree to consider an item in private and if this is the case you will be asked to leave. This happens infrequently and within very limited circumstances that you will see on the agenda and listed in our constitution.
Asking questions, making comments or speaking
You can make an address or ask a question about anything the Council is responsible for or that directly affects people in the city at an ordinary meeting. You can only make an address or ask a question about the budget at the budget council meeting.
Please note that public addresses and questions will be professionally filmed and posted online by the Council and may also be recorded and posted online by any person attending the meeting.
Addresses are made to the whole Council. You can speak for up to 5 minutes. There will not be a debate but on occasions a response is given or verbally or in writing.
If others wish to address Council on the same issue you will have to share your five minutes' speaking time.
Questions are to the Leader or Cabinet Member. You can speak for up to 3 minutes. A response will be sent in writing and on occasions given verbally.
You must submit the full wording of your address/question by 5pm three clear working days* before the meeting. You can do this by emailing the Committee Services Officer at: Democraticservices@oxford.gov.uk
You will be told within two days if your address or question is acceptable in the form you have submitted.
* For a Monday meeting, questions and addresses must be submitted by 5pm Tuesday.
Addresses, questions and any responses are published in the briefing note before the meeting. Summaries are published with the minutes.
If your submission relates to a matter for decision in Part 1 of the meeting, you will speak shortly after 5pm.
If it does not relate to a matter for decision at the meeting or is for a matter in Part 2 you will speak shortly after 7pm.
Meeting agenda
All agendas are available on our website.
These are published five working days before the meeting.
The briefing note is published the working day before the meeting.
Exceptionally a particularly urgent item may be added after the agenda is published. If this happens, it will be published on the website as soon as possible.
Upcoming agenda items
You can register for alerts for committees.
The agenda lists all the business of the committee.
The Forward Plan gives information about significant decisions to be made by Full Council committees over the forthcoming four-month period. It also contains information beyond this in draft form about decisions of significance to be taken in the forthcoming year.
Recording meetings
You can record meetings using your own equipment. We have a filming and recording protocol which we ask you to follow to minimise disruption to the meeting.
If you want to record audio or video, please talk to the clerk before the meeting starts.
All Full Council meetings are recorded and live-streamed on the Council’s YouTube channel. These recordings are available for viewing on YouTube.
