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Public questions and statements at Council meetings
We enable and encourage those that live and work in Sheffield to have a say in their city by allowing public questions, statements and petitions to be presented at formal, decision making meetings.
Council Meeting
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All Councillors attend this meeting and it takes the major decisions on the Council's budget, key policies and procedures.
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Policy Committees
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Most of the important decisions that affect the whole of Sheffield are made by the Council’s Policy Committees. They are responsible for implementing the policies of the Council.
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Local Area Committees
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Every community in Sheffield is covered by one of the Council's seven local area committees. They are the best way for people to get involved in local issues. Details of the Local Area Committees can be found here.
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Planning and Highways Committee |
Details on how to make representations at Planning and Highways Committee can be found here.
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Questions and statements for the Full Council meeting or Committee
A new approach to how the public can submit questions for Council meetings has been introduced to make decision making more accessible.
Councillors have approved proposals to alter how the public interact with the Council’s committees in a bid to encourage more citizen involvement in Sheffield’s democracy.
Details of the scheme are available on our Document Scheme for Public Involvement in Council Meetings page.
Improvements
To improve public access to committees and decision making, committees will allow members of the public to join remotely to ask questions or read statements. This is in addition to being able to attend committee meetings in person.
Livestreaming of Council and Committee meetings will continue as usual through our Webcast Portal.
Members of the public will also have the option to have their questions or statements read out by someone else on their behalf. Either a nominated person or a Council officer.
The following arrangements apply to all types of question and statements:
- your written question, supplementary question, verbal question or statement must not exceed 200 words
- a question may have multiple linked parts, which will be considered as one question (as long as it is within the 200-word limit)
- any pre-amble or introductory remarks must be included in the 200-word limit
There will now be several ways to participate in a Council or Committee meeting. This is to provide members of the public more opportunities to engage. These include:
Deadlines for questions and statements
There is a deadline for submitting questions and statements.
Select the meeting you are interested in on our Dates of Meetings and Deadlines page. Clear working days does not include the day of the deadline or the day of the meeting. For example: for a meeting on a Wednesday, the deadline would be 9am on the Monday in the week before the meeting.
Please email all questions and statements to publicquestions@sheffield.gov.uk.
Which meeting to submit your question or statement to
Full Council can take questions on any matter that is within the Council’s responsibility or that affects the city or its citizens.
If you are asking a question at one of the council’s committees, your question must be within the remit of that committee. Details of Committee remits are available on our Document Council and Policy Committee Responsibilities 2024 2025.
Meeting dates
Date of Council Meetings can be found on the Council Meetings calendar.
Previous questions and statements
You can see details of previous questions/statements and the responses given on our Document Log of all Public Questions and Public Statements (2024 2025) page.