Attendance and speaking at meetings

Members of the public and the media have the right to attend meetings of full council, cabinet and other committees – except where confidential information or exempt information is likely to be disclosed. These meetings are held in private.

Anyone living in Norwich or any other person entitled to stand as a candidate for election to the city council may put a question to the leader of the council, a cabinet member or the chair of a committee at ordinary meetings of the council, cabinet and at some committee meetings. These can be on any matter of council business or issues which affect the Norwich area.

A question may only be asked if notice has been received in writing or email, direct from the questioner, by the council's democratic services team: democraticservices@norwich.gov.uk no later than 10am, five clear working days before the meeting.

At any one meeting no one can submit more than one question, and no more than one question may be asked on behalf of one organisation. 

If you would like to submit a question or have any questions about attending or speaking at meetings, please contact us.

Appropriate questions

Democratic services may reject a question if it:

(a) is not about a matter:
        (i) for which the council has a responsibility or
        (ii) which particularly affects the city; 
(b) is defamatory, frivolous or offensive; 
(c) is a statement rather than a question; 
(d) relates to an individual or the questioner’s own particular circumstances;  
(e) is substantially the same as a question which has been put at a meeting of the council in the past six months; 
(f) requires the disclosure of confidential or exempt information as defined in the Access to Information Procedure Rules see Part 4 of the Constitution 
(g) names or identifies individual service users, officers or members/staff of partner agencies; 
(h) is not submitted within the requisite time frame; 
(i) does not give the name and address of the questioner; 
(j) exceeds 150 words.

Dates for submitting questions - June 2025 to March 2026

Council

Cabinet

If you wish to speak on a planning or licensing issue there are other rules for speaking at these meetings. Please contact the relevant committee officer shown on the front of the agenda.

We do not have public questions at the Annual General Meeting