Cost of Consultants.
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The oddest instance of a meeting moving into part two was last week when community centres were discussed. Members of the press and public were present for most of the debate, then the meeting moved into part two to discuss a few figures at which point we had to leave. The vote was held in part one, but obviously we’d all been booted out so had to chase up the outcome afterwards.
They need to rebrand ‘Part 2’ as SECRET or PRIVATE then it makes it clear to all what it is.
‘Part 2’ makes it sound like everyone has a cuppa then carries on.
I am a little disturbed that so many decisions by the council are made in secret. Unless the discussion is about for example, the remuneration or terms of service of an individual, there should be no need for secret discussions. The councillors are after all making decisions on our behalf and not for themselves. There seems to be much more openness in Central Government than Local Councils which is rediculeous.
One review which has yet to make it into part one is that of leisure centres. Been on agendas a few times but never in part one. Interestingly I believe that review is being conducted by consultants.
@Liam 10360 wrote:
One review which has yet to make it into part one is that of leisure centres. Been on agendas a few times but never in part one. Interestingly I believe that review is being conducted by consultants.
Something big on the cards with proposals for a reduction of £400k for 2014/15 and £311k in 2015/16
@jimbow 10361 wrote:
Something big on the cards with proposals for a reduction of £400k for 2014/15 and £311k in 2015/16
It does concern me that the budget consultation asks us to agree or disagree with proposals which we have no detailed information on, this being a prime case.
The Leisure Review report comes before Homes, Environment and Communities Scrutiny Committee on 11/12/13, and for the first time I very much expect it to be in Part 2 although the financial bits in the Appendices will probably be in part 2. It will be a bit like the Community Centre report. This is the FOI appeal that has gone to the Information Commissioner so Wrecsam Council will be aware of that and will want to be as open and transparent on this as they are allowed.
:eek:
With so many reasonable and rationale members of the community of the firm view that Part 2 secret and confidential meetings are not in the public interest, how is this remedied? In some countries, people would be in front of the courts … could the community make representations to the Local Government Ombudsman?
They hide behind the Local Government Act 1972, which provides them with exemptions like commercial sensitivity and labour relations. Section 45 of FOIA provides public authorities with absolute exemptions from disclosure if that disclosure is exempt under another piece of legislation and Section 45 FOIA is not subject to the Public Interest Test. What we have tried to do in our appeal to the Information Commissioner is to argue that Wrexham Council have unnecessarily included information of a sensitive & confidential nature in reports JUST to make them Part 2 and keep them out of the public domain.
Apologies if its confusing but it wasn’t easy to word the appeal either.
As to what can be done, a media campaign would most certainly help raise awareness as to how transparency can be manipulated.
Don’t suppose WCBC will be too impressed with this post so I suppose this will be another code of conduct issue!
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