The council is drifting away from “open and transparent” decision-making, after revealing that 10 out of 12 items on a single committee agenda were being dealt with behind closed doors.
The Lord Mayor of Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, Alderman Stephen Moutray has expressed his concern for the number of decision items being taken into confidential business.
Speaking at a meeting of the Governance meeting on Wednesday (February 11), Alderman Moutray made sure his thoughts were known before moving into confidential business.
“The item that I want to raise pertains to every decision item that we will take tonight,” he said. “I just want to raise my concern that we are scheduled to take 12 decision items tonight, ten of which will be in confidential business.
“Now I have been around quite a while, and I understand that there are times that we need to take items into confidential business, but when I look down the schedule tonight there are items that I believe could be held in open council.
“And, when I look at the meeting that was held for Community and Wellbeing the other night two items were in public, four in confidential business.
“Economic Development I think was last night, one item in public and four in confidential business. I am really concerned.
“We are a local authority here, we need to be open and transparent to the greatest degree that we can be… so I just want to be plain tonight.”
Members then moved into confidential discussion lasting approximately 37 minutes before returning to the live feed.
Chair of the meeting, Cllr Kate Evans then brought in Deputy Chief Executive, Charlene Stoops to respond to the Lord Mayor’s comments.
“I can confirm that officers are asked to review all information and decision items against Schedule 6 of the Local Government Act which contains descriptions of any exemptions and is supposed to provide members with some added assurance,” explained Ms Stoops.
“We also hold internal officer pre-meetings before we approve the papers to go to each of the committees and that’s really to help senior management team Q and A the decisions that have been made.
“But I will certainly follow up after this evening’s meeting just to ensure all papers, particularly to those committees this week that you have mentioned are checked.”
Alderman Moutray said he “still has concerns” but would be happy if the Deputy Chief would “have a look at it”, adding, “It’s just, I think it should be last resort when something goes into committee, not first resort.”
Deputy Chair of the committee, Cllr Liam Mackle in part defended the items in confidential discussion, stating: “Just on that, obviously transparency is important to us all.
“But if you look through the list of items, there’s none of them that you could say that should have been in open business… apart from the Millennium Way one, which has always been confidential and with good reasons for it.
“It’s ok saying they shouldn’t be in but you need to look at the items and see should they or shouldn’t they be and they obviously all should be.”
While he said he would have been “inclined to leave it there”, Alderman Moutray said Cllr Mackle has “raised his hackles”.
Said Alderman Moutray: “When I look at a topic tonight that we discussed in relation to bus shelters… really does that have to go under confidential business? Something like that?
“I make a comparison, and I’ve been around for a quarter of a century here, there’s far more stuff now goes in confidential that isn’t discussed in open council and there’s little controversy around it but.. there we go! Cllr Mackle and I are not going to agree on that point tonight.”
In support of the Alderman’s stance, Cllr Peter Lavery added: “It’s rare that, sometimes, myself and Alderman Moutray are on the same page but on this one we absolutely are.
“One of the reasons we are here is that we are representing residents of the borough, rate payers of the borough and making decisions on their behalf.
“We know that some of those decisions may need to be in confidential because of the likes of HR, legal and to a certain level financial but if in doubt they should be in open business.
“As I say, we are here representing people. There is a number there of decisions in confidential that I think could have been taken in open business in a very straightforward fashion.
“A number which Alderman Moutray said there. I am content to see what Deputy Chief comes back with but we should be putting as much in open business as possible and having cast iron reasons as to why we can’t. The more in open business the better as far as I’m concerned.”
