“Those of us in cheap seats haven’t got a voice” claim councillors as executive board plans in person only meeting

Councillors have thrown out a protocol aimed at enabling ‘hybrid’ meetings, after discovering an upcoming Executive Board meeting will be held completely in-person with questions apparently being put to the council leader by those who are unable to attend in person.

Councillors were discussing the hybrid meeting plans (report here) in detail, for example legislation requires a person to be seen however some turn off video for performance reasons, and if that would be allowed (it was) when the forthcoming Executive Board meeting on Tuesday (8 March) was mentioned.

It was the first time that the meeting would be held solely in person had been mentioned.

A report released yesterday says that it will take place in the council chamber – the first for exactly two years – however there was an expectation that councillors unable to attend physically would be able to take part via Zoom.

At today’s Democratic Services meeting Cllr Alun Jenkins spoke on the topic, stating he had made enquires about the meeting on Tuesday and had been told “that are going to be no facilities for remote working, there is no opportunity for hybrid facilities”.

Previously Executive Board meetings had been held on Zoom, with the wide belief that a move forward would see some in person attendees but some also able to ‘dial in’ via Zoom or similar platforms, with much made of progress and equality.

Cllr Jenkins detailed how the pandemic had affected him personally, and that his preference from a health perspective was still to avoid such face to face meeting sessions where possible, but still wanted to contribute – as he has – to council business.

He added: “I might want to speak on one of the items, I don’t know I haven’t read through the reports yet, but I would not want to be present at that meeting.

“So I feel that I’m going to be excluded now simply because there isn’t a facility for the meeting to be carried out as hybrid.

“I’ve got no objection at all to the members of the committee being in the Guildhall, if that’s their choice, fine.

“All members, regardless of group, have joined executive board meetings and at the discretion of the chair have been given the opportunity to speak, to address the Executive Board members before they come to a vote either to ask questions, to make comments, to guide the executive board in the way that they exercise their vote.

“The decision now for Tuesday’s meeting to be in the Guildhall and not to be available in hybrid form seems to me to be premature. I’m not sure, is it even illegal?”

“It is one of the most important forums of the of the council where the 42 members that are not on the executive have that opportunity to have their say before the executive board takes up final decisions.”

The council’s Legal Officer confirmed that the meeting on Tuesday will be held legally.

She said: “All members of that committee have agreed that they want to come in, that fulfils the legislation.

“It’s going to be webcast so it can be seen by members of the public and other members.

“You are quite right that questions are at the discretion of the chair and I understand he is making arrangements so that questions can be asked by himself at the meeting. So it does certainly comply with what we’re required to do. All members of Executive Board have agreed that they will come in.”

Pushed on detail on the process the meeting was told ‘arrangements’ were being made for questions to be asked from non-attendees.

Councillors on the Democratic Services Committee appeared surprised at the news that next week’s meeting would be held in person and that there would be no hybrid facility for those unable or uncomfortable to attend.

Questions were raised on how it would work, with the ebb and flow of debates shaping peoples points and queries – something that could be absent, if some councillors only watched via the normal public webcast feed.

Chair of the Committee Cllr Malcom King took particular issue, calling the plan a ‘ridiculous notion’.

He said: ” It is the most important meeting of the council where all the key business is done.

“So if we couldn’t really interact with that as members and it would really throw into doubt support for that system, because there’s always been a feeling that you’re kind of second class member if you’re not a member of the executive board.

“If you then couldn’t really properly ask questions of it, or address it in a way that was interactive, then that would really throw a spanner into the entire democratic processes of the council.”

Cllr Michael Dixon, who was equally concerned, said: “If you’re not there, you’re disenfranchised. Is that the case? In which case, I think we’re missing a trick okay.

“It’s a great way of slipping through city status votes and that sort of thing” adding the plans left councillors ‘in the cheap seats without a voice’.

Cllr Bryan Apsley said: “I’m very often influenced by speakers that have their say before me and I change my question to suit, or come from a different angle. My questions are improved because of the individuals that have spoken before me.

“This surely denying the opportunity if we have pre-arranged questions? I am really concerned by this.”

Cllr Rob Walsh predicted the issue will ‘run and run’ over the coming days, but also noted the strength of in-person meetings as not everyone can use or has access to technology for digital only meetings.

Simmering away while other councillors spoke, Cllr King came back again: “I don’t think I could possibly describe how vehemently opposed I will be to this. I don’t think there’s words in English language that could describe how much opposed to it I am.

“There is the issue about the executive board and what a bad idea it would be to have a row about democracy just before the election, and to make it look like the executive board don’t really bother about everybody else, which is what most of the other 42 members quite often feel.”

Speaking on the apparent process he added,: “The bodies could say ‘we’re all happy to meet’ and if the rest of you people in the cheap seats can’t take part tough luck.

“You can send in your question by post or a pigeon or something else and we’ll consider it, if we think it’s important enough or we’ve got time or some other sort of way in which we might dismiss the importance of people who aren’t really in on that particular committee or the executive board or some other body.

“I imagine Putin would think it was a good idea, but I think the idea that its worthy of being called democracy in Wrexham…! I am absolutely opposed to it.”

“The idea that we would have a system that meant the people who are immunosuppressed, for instance, which is for not just them themselves, but people they are close to.

“When you look at the percentages of people who that applies to, that either aren’t very keen on going to something because you might get killed or you might go to it and take something back which might kill your husband or wife or other people that you’re you’re sharing spaces with seems to me to be not an unreasonable fear to have.”

“Now when we could say well, there’s no reason for you to be anxious, nothing to be anxious about, even though your next door neighbour might have died and don’t have to worry about it….”

At that point the Legal Officer asked if the main topic of the meeting could be returned to, but Cllr King carried on: “This is very much the topic. There are all sorts of risks to people, they need to be able to take part in meetings.

“However much people might like it to be over the fact is the risks aren’t over and we need to bear that in mind, we cannot disenfranchise people by by having a system whereby if you’re not on that committee, you can’t take part in a way which is meaningful. I don’t believe that was what the legislation was there for.”

The Legal Officer told the meeting: “The legislation is not seeking to preclude others from joining in meetings.

“We are doing a test next Tuesday to see how things work. We are looking at new equipment all the time and we tested with last week’s council meeting some of that equipment and we’re hoping to roll that out as soon as possible.

“So let’s be clear the legislation, the council and this protocol are not looking to exclude others from meetings. We are trying to find a way as soon as possible with the technology to make sure everybody can participate as they’re allowed.”

Cllr Jenkins then spoke again, pointing out the entire exchange validated his point.

He said: “It has raised some very fundamental and very important issues. I thought when I raised Tuesday was very much a glitch, that we were going to put in place a protocol and under that protocol, what was being proposed for Tuesday couldn’t possibly happen.

” I think this meeting now shows exactly the importance of having remote access, because if I simply put my thoughts ,which I did to the chair before the start of this meeting, then as I had made the case as I made it to you earlier,  if I hadn’t been present now I wouldn’t then be able to listen to the way that the debate is going and realise now that there was this anomaly within the report.

“There needs to be a definition accepted by the whole of the council that meetings are hybrid by decision of the Council rather than by decision of each of the committees separately and I think that that should be written into the protocol. ”

Cllr King added: “We cannot have a two tier democracy in Wrexham.

“It seem to me to be dangerous to democracy, and dangerous to people who might feel cajoled into going to meetings.

“We need to be employing a risk benefit approach to all these things. What’s the benefit combined compared to the risk, if it means it’s a risk for people who have got mental health issues or immunosuppressed, if they have got a serious illness and they have to put their lives at risk to go (to a meeting)? Is that worth it? ”

The Committee voted to pause looking at the meeting protocol before them for hybrid meetings, and decided to hold a prompt Task and Finish Group inside the next seven days to create a ‘watertight protocol’ and then come back to it via email as there is no public meeting scheduled.

During the meeting we asked Wrexham Council for comment from the Chair of the Executive Board on why councillors such as Cllr Jenkins were in effect being disenfranchised from the democratic process, and if Wrexham Council considered the pandemic over.

*Pictured: The Guildhall Chamber back in 3rd March 2020, before the pandemic hit Wales.