Newry, Mourne and Down District Council has claimed its move towards open and transparent democracy has been “successful” despite over 50% of committee debates in just one month being held in secret.
The Council launched a pilot scheme in August 2023 to bring more chamber reports and discussions into the public eye.
However, an investigation by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), in to the council agendas of all six committees, where the business of elected reps is done, shows an apparent tighter hold on releasing information.
A council spokesperson said: “All committee reports are judged on their own merit with items for exemption as per the legislation.
“Items for exemption and accompanying rationale under the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 are detailed in council agendas and considered by elected members.”
The month of September witnesses the council chamber back in full swing after its summer break.
The strategy, policy and resources committee had the highest amount of closed door decisions with 13 closed, two open and three items for noting only.
Planning is considered the lowest level of confidential with two items passed on the addendum list with no speaking rights requested, six items open and one for noting only.
Many large scale decisions including, the council’s new £17m civic centre, maintenance and shut down of Newry swimming pool, nuclear free membership and Newry city centre regeneration plans are being kept secret from the public.
The LDRS review of NMDDC committee debates shows that out of 63 decisions made by councillors in September 2024, there were 43 made behind closed doors.
The statistics when further analysed show that a further 12 agenda items were ‘for noting only’ with no discussions required in chambers.
This makes for a grand total of 55 agenda items out of 75 being pushed through the democratic chamber without any open scrutiny of how the ratepayers’ purse is spent.
Full council meetings are also held each month, though much of the content is a matter of simply ratifying or rubber stamping committee minutes.
A NMDDC spokesperson added: “The pilot (for greater transparency) had elements of a report that could be discussed in open session tabled, but with exempt information in line with the legislation still being held in closed session.
“It is working successfully and is still being used by officers when examining reports for agenda upload.”
The LDRS previously revealed 98 NMDDC agenda items in closed session over a three month period (March -May 2022) before the council’s transparency trial system was ever engaged.
Over a similar period, in the three month period ending 22 November 2023 after the pilot was announced there were 96 items kept in confidential session.
Only parts of three confidential items were brought in to open debate in that period, though appendices on the details of these items were still kept away from the public.
All 11 local authorities in NI can remove members of the public and the media from meetings by using powers from a 10 year old legislation from Stormont.
The Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) Act 2014 was brought about to provide an ethical standards framework for councils and elected reps.
When an agenda item falls into the parameters of the Local Government Act, councillors are asked to propose and second a proposal in order to go into confidential session. Only two elected reps are required for this to happen, with NMDDC having a total of 41 councillors.
However, all councillors have the ability to speak out against such a move for confidential session and have it recorded in council minutes. At the same time elected reps are presented with legal advice and told at the beginning of each meeting that they are “individually responsible for comments made”.
