In some ways the area committees have been disappointing – exemplified by one comment heard recently that “3 of the councillors seem to fall asleep during the meetings”. But they still have their uses, allowing the public to raise issues with their elected representatives.
Attendance levels by the public aren’t high, perhaps because some councillors make it clear that they don’t want to listen to questions, and because those questions often aren’t answered to the questioners satisfaction.
Three members of the Council’s Review Committee have prepared a report proposing to scrap the area committees and replace them with community fora. These would be different from the Area Committees in that:
Update : the link to the report is here.
“Residents could attend to ask questions or ask their Councillor to champion an issue on their behalf. No questions would be submitted in advance, but at the meeting itself. A list of questions and answers could be posted on the web sire for information purposes. If a question could not be answered at the time it would be necessary to feed the information back to the questioner after the meeting.”
What a waste of time and money I can’t think of any arrangement more unsatisfactory………….comments please.
It is clear that most councillors are loathed to speak at these meetings because they are not adequately versed in the subjects being raised by the public. This means that a council officer or portfolio holder has to step in and deliver a pre-scripted reply.
The new proposal, on the basis of what Admin has written above, will then be the same but without the people that matter being in attendance, namely our elected representatives.
Personally I will be glad to see a shake up in how the council and the public come together and discuss problems but much more emphasis must be placed on how dialogue between both sides is achieved. The current method of restricting public involvement to 15 minutes is ridiculous. There should be no time limit set on this as the main purpose of these meetings should be to allow members of the public to get answers in open debate.
Finally, Did the Council’s Review Committee consider inviting members of the public to assist in the writing of this report. I very much doubt it!!!
The Area Committees certainly have not been a success and are unlikely to be missed. They are supposed to allow the public a chance to voice their views but the public involvement section is limited to just 20 mins. Many over zealous chair-persons have then further limited debate by refusing to allow discussions on issues of real interest (eg the Core Strategy) rendering the whole process meaningless; turning-off residents from attending; and endorsing RDC’s reputation for not wanting meaningful consultation.
The new proposals will go the same way unless there is a significant change of approach by RDC to allow meaningful agendas and discussion. I would suggest that an independent chair-person, to ensure ‘fair-play’, would be a good start.
In case anyone is wondering, Greenbelt’s and my comments, although near identical, were written totally independently.
It really doesn’t matter what structure is adopted if the council doesn’t want to embrance open debate. Its now nearly 9 months since the Allocations DPD consultation finished last April but the council still haven’t published the results. Looking at the overwhelming mass rejection of their proposals, it is easy to understand why but its continued suppression does nothing to engender faith in democracy, or David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, in Rochford.