Questions must:

• Relate to Council policy or services, or be an issue that falls within the Council’s responsibilities, but not be about individual or personal issues
• Concern a single subject, be concise and not in multiple parts
• Be in the form of a question and not a statement
• Not name or identify any individual citizens or members of staff
• Not be defamatory, offensive or contain factual inaccuracies that could cause reputational damage to the Council
• Not be substantially the same question that has been asked in the previous six months
• Be addressed to a member of the Executive, the Chair of a Committee or a Chair of any other Council body on a matter within their remit
• Be submitted in writing by 9am two clear working days before the meeting of Full Council at which the questioner wants the question to be asked

The Constitutional Services Team is happy to assist anyone that wants to ask a question, including providing help with the wording or writing of the question if that is needed

• Call: 0115 876 4315 or 0115 876 4312
• Email Constitutional Services Nottingham City.

Questions need to be submitted in writing in one of the following ways:

• Online form: Submit a question using the online form
• Email: Questions for Nottingham City Council
• Write: Head of Legal and Governance, LH Box 28, Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG

When submitting a question you must give your name, address and email address. The address must be the address at which you live or your business address (not a business of which you are an employee), and be within the City boundary. 

The deadline for questions to be submitted to be asked at a Full Council meeting is 9am 2 clear working days in advance of that meeting (this is usually the Wednesday before the meeting).  Please submit your question earlier if you can to allow time to resolve any issues with your submission.

If your question is submitted after the deadline it will be considered for the next Full Council meeting. 

• Please click here to view the dates of City Council meetings

The receipt and response to your question will be coordinated by the Constitutional Services Team.

You are not obliged either by statute or by contract to provide your contact details, but we will be unable to process your question without them.  Only your initials will be shared with councillors or colleagues, or published on the website.  Your name, address and email address and any other personal details will only be used by the Constitutional Services Team to process a question you have asked; a Council task carried out in the public interest.  If you submit a question we will email you the updates and responses relating to that question only. 

• For more information please refer to our detailed privacy statement.

The Data Controller is Nottingham City Council and its Data Protection Officer is Naomi Matthews who can be contacted at Nottingham City Council, Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. The new data protection law known as the General Data Protection Regulation provides for a number of new rights.

• A guide to individual rights | ICO

Please note that if you are unhappy with the handling of your data you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioners Office.

• Click here to complain to the Information Commissioners Office.

The Lord Mayor (or his/her Deputy) will determine which questions are to be answered and if they will receive an oral response at the Full Council meeting or a written response.  The Lord Mayor may decide to group similar questions together.   

Questions receiving an oral response will be answered in the order that they are received.  If there are more questions than can be answered in the 30 minutes allocated at the meeting, written answers will be sent to questions not able to be dealt with at the meeting.

Some questions received are not suitable to be asked at Full Council and are instead forwarded to the relevant team to deal with, rather than handled as a citizen question requiring an oral or written response at Council.

You cannot ask a question in person at the meeting, but your question will be circulated in advance as part of the agenda papers which will be published on the City Council’s website and distributed in the public gallery on the day of the meeting.

You will be invited to come to the meeting and sit in the public gallery to hear the answer to your question.

No discussion will be allowed at the meeting regarding either a question or an answer.

Following the meeting, you will be sent details of the minutes of the meeting at which your question was asked which will include the response to your question.

Your question will be answered by the most appropriate councillor depending on what your question is about.  This will be either the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader, the Portfolio Holder for the relevant service or the relevant Committee Chair.