A proposal to make council meetings easier for the public to understand was approved by councillors on Monday, despite a recommendation to the contrary by the council's monitoring officer.

Councillor Mike Stoddart submitted a notice of motion proposing that councillors submitting questions at full council have the option to read out the question before it is answered.

Cllr Stoddart explained that this would give a context to the answers, currently unavailable to members of the public watching the online broadcast of the meeting.

"The point is that anybody watching the webcast of the meeting, the leader stands up and answers a question. People don't know what the question is."

Monitoring officer, Lawrence Harding, said that members providing context could raise the prospect of a speech and would result in the duplication of information.

However Cllr Bob Kilmister said it was "lunacy" to refuse the notice of motion.

"Somebody needs to read the question out so that people understand it," he said. "We must look like complete idiots to the public for doing this."

Council leader Jamie Adams said that people watching the web cast also had access to the agenda but Cllr Kilmister pointed out that you would need access to two devices to simultaneously read the agenda and listen to the web cast "otherwise you are asking people to print out a monstrous agenda".

Following a suggestion from Cllr Adams, the motion was amended to enable the cabinet member who answers the question in full council to also read out the question beforehand, but only at the request of the councillor who submitted it. The amended motion was carried by a majority of nine votes.

The final decision will be made by full council in December.