Council Executive gagging Councilors
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Posts
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Yet again we have seen the Leader of the Council imposing an arbitrary rule to try and shut up Clr Malcolm King by stopping him make comments about a report before making a question. Those of us who have seen Clr King at meetings know that he can suffer from verbal diarrhea at times before he gets to a point. In the instance today he was commenting about the Leisure Services review yet was repeatedly told to ask a question and not to comment. It know appears that comments are no longer acceptable.
It also know appears that Council Member workshops are confidential –WHY? What is being hidden? – Items which have a commercial issue are fine to be kept confidential but their general discussions should be made public. We are gradually seeing the end of democratic accountability to the electorate.It is worth noting that on previous occasions follow up questions / comments had been denied, but one was allowed yesterday.
I dont know if the policies / rules or whatever are different for the business of the meeting compared to the public questions at the start though!
Does this now mean that if I asked my local councillor to ask a question on my behalf at a workshop meeting, he could not give me an answer, as the workshop discussion was not available to the public.
Putting meetings on the web is one of the best things that has happened in Wrexham in a very long time. With each meeting we are seeing more and more about how the Council works and decisions are made. It would be very good to see other meetings, for example the scrutiny and workshops meetings about which constant reference is made.
The more councillors that speak up and debate, the better. It became apparent in Monday’s debate, and was specifically mentioned by a Council Member, that the Council should be considering expenditure items in the context of the whole budget and plan, and not just seeing budget lines in isolation.
It’s a shame Scrutiny Meetings aren’t currently webcast as there is quite a wide variety of debate, scrutiny and disagreements in there (along long meetings with no overall outcome!) They’re quite interesting to watch as well from the point of seeing who your local councillor is and what they contribute to the meetings.
I’ve sat in on some good meetings about Wrexham markets, waterworld and the initial Plas Madoc Scrutiny meeting – so hopefully the webcasting of scrutiny will be available one day! Just so the broad range of factors are more readily available to the public.
The secrecy of workshops clearly does not give the electorate the opportunity to view what s going on in totality- clearly all we are seeing is the result quite often of discussions and decision making that have already taken place. The gagging of comments is also very worrying trend — Clr Pritchard needs to have a consistent approach and manage the Chair accordingly
In the webcast on Monday, the comment was made that we are over governed. Reading a Wales report and comments on blogs, a lot of people if not most, agree with this. While we have got committees meeting and being quoted so much in webcast meetings, why can all these committees not be webcast?
It would surely improve public understanding about what is going on in decision making, and hopefully encourage frank discussion about how we are over governed, the cost, and how this could be done more simply and cost effectively in the future
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