Council to reduce public access to meetings
24 May 2011 by Paul RhoadesVisit Scunthorpe have become aware of plans by the Conservative controlled North Lincolnshire Council to half the number of meetings which take place over the coming year.
Currently there are 8 council meetings, two of which are “extra ordinary”, those being the Budget meeting (This year in February) and the AGM which will be held tomorrow, 25th May.
Typically there would be another 6 meetings held through out the year to which the public can attend, watch debates and submit pre-written questions to the leader of the council.
While every one can appreciate the need to reduce operating costs, the reduction of public meetings from 6 to 2 is a very questionable decision in terms of public democracy and transparency of government. The removal of these public meetings also means that more decisions will be made by the cabinet behind closed doors.
Holding these decision making meetings away from the public eye signifies a reduction in public accountability which was promised by the conservatives in their election campaign.
Visit Scunthorpe have also been led to believe that the conservatives will be stopping the Leader’s Forward Plan from going to full council, which means once again that proposals put forward by the ruling conservative group will not be open to debate or discussion.
Additionally sources have told us that scrutiny panel's reports will not be presented to council along with questions to North Lincolnshire Homes.
The Council’s AGM will be held tomorrow morning at 10:00 am at Pittwood House. This timing is unfortunate for a lot of people who are working and would be unable to attend, we have been told however that the AGM is always held at this time. However, the public gallery will be open and members of the public are encouraged to attend in time for a 10 o'clock start.
We would hope to be able to bring reader’s updates of the business discussed at the AGM as soon as it happens, along with key decisions being made by the new ruling group. We understand that there will be some changes to the councillor’s expenses and basic allowances, with a 10% reduction being promised by the leader of the Conservative Group Liz Redfern.
Business for the meeting is as follows:
1 To elect a Mayor
2 Vote of thanks to retiring Mayor.
3 To appoint a Deputy Mayor.
4 Election of Councillors - Report by the Chief Executive.
5 To approve the dates for meetings of the Council
(a) Political Composition and Balance of the Council - Report of the Director of Corporate and Community Services
(b) The Chief Executive to report the appointment of group leaders and secretaries
(c) To elect the Leader of the Council for a four year term
(d) To note the number of members to be appointed to the Cabinet
(e) To establish a Standards Committee and appoint members to this
(f) To establish Scrutiny Panels together with a Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel and appoint members to these
(g) To establish and appoint members to committees and key outside bodies
(h) To appoint Chairs and Vice-Chairs of panels and committees
(i) To appoint lead members on key council themes
(j) Constitution and Governance Issues - Report by the Director of Corporate and Community Services
(k) Members' Allowances - To consider a report by the Director of Corporate and Community Services enclosing a report by the Independent Remuneration Panel
(l) To consider a timetable of meetings for 2011/2012
(m) To pass such other resolutions as may be appropriate
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Comments
move to politics?
Suppose so.
Moved.
Have been asked to provide a live feed for tweets from the mtg tomorrow, I'll do this in the morning.
Use the hash tag #nlagm to post directly to the live feed, the console will be unmanaged so you'll only be able to post via twitter as the admins have to work :(
All chamber meeting should be open the public , reducing the number of meeting is pathetic .In my opinion they should have reduced councillor's expenses further , testing their commitment to public service ,and kept the number of meeting at 6 .Perhaps with less to do councilors could spend more time canvassing the opinions of locals., using social media they could set up ward specific pages and also do more open surgeries .It's about time they reacted to local needs and not the dogma of their specific parties
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