Closed Doors at the Council
Article published: Thursday, August 6th 2009
Parliament has been under attack lately (not literally, unfortunately) for its lack of ‘transparency’. It took a plucky mole to steal the documents, and public spiritedly flog them for £300,000 to the Telegraph to find out how much of our money was being spent on crystal grapefruit bowls and £200 pens (stand up Gorton MP Gerald Kaufman). Add to that the Conservative Party’s staunch opposition to the Freedom of Information Act, and the government’s refusal to release minutes from cabinet meetings leading up to the Iraq war, and you have an ugly picture of secrecy and deceit.
However, compared to local government, Westminster’s doing great. MPs’ every move is monitored by a gossip hungry press, NGOs pour over every policy. Every word uttered in the debating chamber is written down and made publicly available in Hansard, and anyone with a digibox can watch parliament in session on the BBC.
When it comes to local government though, barely anyone has a clue what’s going on. And we won’t lie, Mule finds it hard to keep up with events at the Town Hall. The MEN is generally keener on cats up trees and the X Factor than holding power to account. The ‘meeting minutes’ buried on the city council’s website don’t reveal the finer points of how decisions are made. Our local councillors won’t even respond to our concerned emails about the ID cards trial.
There’s always ‘The Leader’s Blog’ though, where Richard Leese throws down information morsels from the high table. Here earnestly reassures us that local councillors aren’t like that Westminster lot, but laments how “those of us politicians in local government tend to get tarred with the same brush”. In a recent entry he describes himself as a “great supporter of openness and transparency”, and declares that he’s “not giving away secrets” when he tells us the details of council policy when meetings are open to the public.
Open to the public, eh? Maybe finding out for ourselves what’s really going on requires going to meetings. Hearing that the executive were meeting on the morning of March 11th, we headed to the town hall. “Where’s the executive meeting?” we ask the lady on reception. “Erm, I don’t think that’s open to the public” she says, suspiciously. “Oh yes it is”, we reply. “Oh no it isn’t!”
Persistence gets us as far as the events desk on the next floor, but they’re saying the same thing, and with even more smug satisfaction. One passing member of staff even stops to say “you can’t go in!”. Not taking ‘no’ for answer, we persuade the events desk to ‘call somebody’ about it, and the result? We can go in! Mule – 1, Officialdom – 0. However, the meetings finished now, so we’re back at all square.
We decide to have another go, this time for the council AGM in May (sounds more interesting than the ‘Bus Lanes Adjudication Joint Committee’). To make sure we know where we stand, we decide to try and find out in advance whether we can definitely attend. On the section of the council website listing the meetings, nowhere is it mentioned that the meetings are open to the public. Not anywhere. There is no contact email or number provided to make enquiries about the meetings, so we end up ringing the main switchboard. The operator is bemused at our question, and hasn’t a clue where to direct us to. We’re passed from department to department, meeting plenty of answer phones along the way and having to give up and start the process again. Eventually we reach ‘members services’. They can answer our question, but it will take time. They email us back a few hours later to confirm that we can attend.
On the day of the AGM, it’s clear that the council’s approach to including the public in meetings is paying dividends. In a public viewing gallery that holds over 100 people, there are only two members of the public – for the AGM!
As for the meeting itself, it seems that the council’s strategy is to attempt to bore anyone who may have slipped through into vowing to never come back. A new lord mayor (Alison Firth) is being appointed, which means long winded speeches from the leader of the Labour Party and the Lib Dem opposition praising the incumbent (Mavis Smitheman) and the newcomer, followed by prayers (the recession must be worse than expected), and then, three quarters of an hour in, we get down to business.
Time for politics, time for debate! Not so, the minutes for previous meetings were approved with tired groans from the dozens of councillors below. And not one councillor had submitted a single question to the executive.
But we persevere. Maybe the Executive meeting will give us a little more. This time we go up to the front desk with a printed copy of the agenda and point to the room number on it. Wow! First time and no questions asked. We’re told to go up the lift to the third floor and it’ll be just on the left. We’re a little puzzled when we get in the lift. Buttons to floors one, two, four…huh? They are being secretive, apparently holding meetings in a non-existent part of the building.
After asking two more confused people we find the place in another part of the building and creep in late. Looking around we see no other members of the public. Can’t blame them. It’s hard to stay awake, and we notice this seems to be a problem for some of the councillors too.
But on with the politics. Most of the agenda items were passed with almost no debate. One person summarises the issue in council jargon. There’s a bit of self-congratulation about how great the work put in by councillors is, how great academies and PFI have been…it goes on a bit. If we were lucky, someone might even ask a question. The Leader then asks if the item can be approved. Some silent nodding (we think in approval but maybe it was a heavy one the night before?) and onto the next thing.
Due to our lateness we had missed the ‘declaration of interests’ at the start of the session. Items 13 and 15 are about the proposed ‘Co-operative Complex’, a new commercial centre in the city. There’s a mass exodus from the room. It seems about half of the thirty or so people have an interest in this project. So many the meeting only has just enough to carry on.
It’s all a bit exciting for a few minutes. A couple of Lib Dems challenge The Leader, suggesting Manchester maybe doesn’t need a new commercial sector right now given the recession. Perhaps social housing should be a priority given the 21,000 on the waiting list? They’re disputing his figures. “Don’t interrupt me!” is the response, “If you want to speak, put you’re hand up”. Yes, he used to be a school teacher. But another does the same, eek! “You just don’t learn do you? The next time you interrupt me you’re out”. End of discussion. No wonder Sir Richard is nicknamed ‘Stalin’ by so many people working at the council.
That’s enough drama for one meeting. Item 20 is a bit odd though. It’s titled “Exclusion of the public” on the agenda. We’re not allowed to stay for that. Apparently it’s not in the ‘public interest’. If we wanted to appeal, we had to do it 48 hours earlier, not that we know what it was even about. Perhaps it was about inclusivity and openness? When The Leader had his little tantrum, he said “We’re not like the House of Commons here”. Too right Sir Richard, there’s nobody watching.
Andy Lockhart and Andrew Bowman
Comments
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Sad to hear of your experiences of local democracy in Manchester. However, many local councils now webcast their meetings, which may not make them more interesting, but at least makes them more open and transparent – and you don’t have to watch the whole meeting to find the item you’re interested in. Some have even reduced the jargon and improved the language to make it more understandable to the audience so they’re not all bad…
Comment by Carol on August 6, 2009 at 9:46 pm -
Stockport Council is terrible. There are no accurate minutes of meetings. The Leader can call members of the public in the gallery liars and provide no proof. Ordinary people who go to ask public questions are treated with complete contempt. The public question request forms containing names, addresses and signatures were put up on the Council website. They were told about this on a Thursday evening at the full council meeting, but did nothing to remove the offending data protection violations until the following Monday afternoon, and then only after the Information Commission and police had been contacted.
Comment by Sheila Oliver on August 8, 2009 at 8:40 pm -
Personally, I think Cheltenham Borough Council will make a best seller eventually. Young peole will pick up the tab for the finacial mess this country is in, and they will also pick up the tab for the breakdown of Democracy.
Comment by Mike Davis on August 10, 2009 at 5:27 pm -
Mike
I am going to write a book about appalling Stockport Council – working title:- A Four Star Council
Comment by Sheila Oliver on August 10, 2009 at 6:51 pm -
*********** Please delete the other version as it has errors *********
Absolutely brilliant – Welcome to English Local Government.
There is a fundamental problem with English local government (never mind Scottish or Welsh – they can sort out their own problems because they have their own parliament and assembly – we in England have nothing).
In England we have unelected and publicly unaccountable council officials literally doing what they like whenever they like, councillors being ineffective at properly representing the public, important decisions being taken in de facto secrecy which means important information affecting the lives of local residents being withheld from them.
All this is actually called “Local Democracy”. Democracy? What a sick joke. England has never ever had true democracy of any kind – only a pathetic shambles of what democracy could, and should, be.
1. Local votes on local issues. Any resident from 11 upwards should be able to vote on something that affects, or could affect, them. The result of the vote should be binding on the local authority.
2. Regular three-monthly council meetings in different parts of the local authority area WITH all the directors and chief executive answering ad-hoc questions form the public that attend. No more should unelected council officials be able to make executive decisions (under the local authority’s delegation of ‘power’ from the councillors to officials) and then escape the consequences of their bad and ineffective work. They must, like councillors, be publicly accountable to the public they are being paid to serve.
3. The same with the police force – every three months public meetings with the Area Commander – sometimes called the Local Police Area (LPA) Commander – usually a Chief Inspector or Superintendent.
4. All senior council officials on continuous annual contracts – not given jobs for life – so it is easy and cheaper to fire ineffective top officials by having to give them a maximum of a year’s salary to go compared with the present system of SECRET – withheld from the public – pay-offs which could amount to £1/3 or even £1/2 million pounds.
I could go on like this for hours.
Paul Janik
PPPILA – Promoting Public Participation in Local Affairs.
01753-208111
slough.party (at) gmail.com(coming sometime in September http://www.badgov.org.uk with examples of our wunderful local council with plenty of room for the achievements of other wunderful councils and public bodies)
Comment by Paul Janik on August 15, 2009 at 12:24 pm -
[…] Closed Doors at the Council – One of the questions that's often asked about the decline of local newspapers is how will local government be held to account if no-one is watching? Manchester website MULE decided to have a go, with predictably depressing results. This reminded me of when I first started dabbling in blogging about Birmingham and went to an event at the Birmingham council chamber. Mike Whitby, the leader, spoke for 20 minutes. I had no idea what he said. One might think they don't want people to understand them. […]
Pingback by Closed Doors at the Council | Pete Ashton on August 19, 2009 at 4:11 pm -
[…] Closed Doors at the Council – One of the questions that's often asked about the decline of local newspapers is how will local government be held to account if no-one is watching? Manchester website MULE decided to have a go, with predictably depressing results. This reminded me of when I first started dabbling in blogging about Birmingham and went to an event at the Birmingham council chamber. Mike Whitby, the leader, spoke for 20 minutes. I had no idea what he said. One might think they don't want people to understand them. […]
Pingback by Closed Doors at the Council | Pete Ashton on August 19, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The comments are closed.
