Tag: Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Parliamentary ping-pong, “democracy dodgers” and the £556,789 in “forgotten cuts” at Wirral Council

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Parliamentary ping-pong, “democracy dodgers” and the £556,789 in “forgotten cuts” at Wirral Council

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Parliamentary ping-pong, “democracy dodgers” and the £556,789 in “forgotten cuts” at Wirral Council

                         

Shortly before Christmas Wirral Council had a “budget options” meeting after the What Really Matters consultation. At this meeting cuts, based on the public response to the consultation for 2014/15 were in principle agreed to. Strictly speaking it was a new budget and policy framework that was agreed to. The budget for 2014/15 is to be decided in March 2014, based on the assumption that Council Tax on Wirral would rise by 2% in 2014/15.

So just to recap, the Labour administration have ruled out a Council Tax referendum. The reason they give is that the large cost of the referendum that would fall on Wirral Council (if you can remember the amount they quoted please leave a comment about what it was and who said it). This is despite the law (The Local Authority (Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases) (Date of Referendum) (England) Order 2013) that states a Council Tax increase referendum would have to be held on the 22nd May 2014 (the same day as the joint European & local Council elections). I’m not sure if the estimated figure a councillor quoted last year for a Council tax increase referendum took into account the reduced cost of the referendum due to holding other elections on the same day (or whether the cost quoted assumed the referendum would be held separately to other elections in which case the estimate is too high).

Labour’s budget assumption therefore assumes that Council Tax will rise by 2% (without the need for a referendum) to lessen the need for further cuts they’d have to make if the rise was any lower or Council Tax was kept the same. The Labour administration have also ruled out accepting a Council Tax Freeze grant equivalent to a 1% rise if they agreed to keep Council Tax the same as last year.

However Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has different plans and according to an article last week in the Guardian based on leaked Cabinet letters wants to reduce the threshold to 1.5% and refers to councils that rise Council Tax by only two percent as “democracy dodgers” and “believes they need to be punished to show the government is trying to control the cost of living”. Furthermore Pickles states “he wants to stop councils or police bodies being able to exempt some spending from the cap.”

This article in the Bristol Post before Christmas also quotes the Rt Hon Eric Pickles from a statement in relation to council tax increases “as being particularly open to representations suggesting that some lower threshold be applied to councils, given the strong need to protect taxpayers wherever possible from unreasonable increases”.

So what has this got to do with Parliamentary ping-pong? Well the Local Audit and Accountability Bill is heading to its next to the last stage (starting on 21st January) called “parliamentary ping-pong” before the last stage “Royal Assent” and it becomes law. Crucially the section on Council Tax referendum calculations (s.41) comes into force (see s.49) when the act receives Royal Assent and changes the formula of how a yearly Council Tax increase is arrived at.

In future once the Local Audit and Accountability Bill becomes an Act, the calculation of Council Tax rise includes not just Wirral Council’s share of the Council Tax bill, but also (if I’ve read the bill correctly and please leave if a comment if I’m wrong) the other levying bodies that form part of Council Tax bills too. This means the yearly increase in Council Tax requirements in the budgets of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside would affect what the percentage increase would be.

It looks from the wording of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill (and a lot of recent regulations) that this will come into effect for the 2014/15 financial year. As the basis by which a Council Tax rise is calculated will change, £556,789 is my rough estimate of what changing the threshold from 2% to 1.5% will be as the true amount of extra cuts will depend on what the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner’s and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s Council Tax requirements for 2014/15 are.

At Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee meeting (held yesterday at the time of writing), in item 8 (policy update), councillors on the committee will have read in their papers on page 2, under Implications for the Local Audit and Accountability Bill “Budget Strategy considerations may also be impacted by the changes to the Council Tax threshold for triggering a referendum.”

Yet curiously not one of the councillors of the fifteen on the Coordinating Committee asked how much changing the Council Tax threshold for triggering a referendum would affect the budget strategy considerations or to my recollection anything at all about how a change to the Council Tax threshold would affect the 2014/15 Budget.

So is this £½ million of cuts at Wirral Council that councillors seem to be unaware of going to result in a further twelve-week consultation (or will the responses to the What Really Matters consultation be reused)? If any of these further cuts require ninety days consultation with the trade unions will this mean that they will only be realised as part-year savings in 2014/15?

There does seem to be one concession the Liberal Democrats have received though. Any regulations the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP decides to do with council tax increase referendums has to by law be also agreed with Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP first.

So what do you dear reader think? Will Cllr Phil Davies be saying of the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP something similar to the famous Laurel and Hardy quote “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”. With exquisite timing, Wirral Council’s Labour administration will have to agree the budget for 2014/15 around the end of February 2014 meaning these extra cuts will probably feature in the local election period in the lead up to polling day on the 22nd May.

Certainly this apparent lack of a plan B will have to be explained when the Improvement Board returns in March. As the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP (Labour’s Shadow Chancellor) said last October about Labour’s economic competence, “we are going to win based upon our experience, our track record, our credibility”.

Oh and if you think the projected underspend of £884,000 will mean a further £½ million of cuts won’t have to be made in 2014/15 you’d be wrong.

£250,000 of the underspend will probably be agreed tonight to go towards the clean up and repairs to infrastructure in New Brighton following the bad weather. A further £519,000 of the underspend has been earmarked for future restructuring costs leaving (at current estimates) only a projected underspend of £115,000 that can count towards an estimated a £½ million of cuts required if the Coalition government reduce the Council Tax increase referendum threshold to 1.5%.

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Government publishes privacy (8), freedom of expression and assembly (10&11) human rights arguments on filming public meetings law

Government publishes privacy (8), freedom of expression and assembly (10&11) human rights arguments on filming public meetings law

Government publishes privacy (8), freedom of expression and assembly (10&11) human rights arguments on filming public meetings law

                        

I thought it was about time to give a brief update on the filming issue and how the Local Audit and Accountability Bill is progressing through the Houses of Parliament.

On Tuesday it finished its last stages in the House of Commons (third reading and report stage) and is expected to become law around February 2014. Sadly when it becomes law in February 2014 it doesn’t settle the filming issue as section 40 (entitled access to local government meetings and documents) in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill around filming which you can read for yourself on Parliament’s website merely grants the power to the Minister to make further secondary legislation in this area.

Also in its commencement section (49(2)) which you can also also read in the same document on Parliament’s website the section on filming (as well as the more controversial section on local authority publicity) won’t come into effect until two months after the Local Audit and Accountability Bill becomes law (which if it does become law in February 2014 means it’ll be April 2014 at the earliest before there is secondary legislation on the matter).

As nobody really knows what the wording of the secondary legislation will be yet and section forty is open to a number of interpretations there have been some concerns expressed about what form it will take. I think it’s already been mentioned that the Government want to consult with the Local Government Association on this first.

Published this morning were the explanatory notes on the Commons amendments to the Local Audit and Accountability Bill which include at page 13 a statement on “compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights”.

I will quote from this section here (the quotes are in numbered bold paragraphs with my commentary below them), hopefully it allays some fears people had over what the secondary legislation is about and repeats the article 10 (freedom of expression) arguments I’ve been making to Wirral Council about filming for some time!

60. The amendments to the Bill which would allow residents attending meetings of the full council, its committees and sub-committees to act as citizen journalists potentially engage some rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (“the ECHR”).

This is just a statement of fact, written in the ever careful language of lawyers, in my opinion they don’t “potentially engage”, they do engage.

61. The provisions would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations which are either free-standing or amend the relevant provisions in Part 5A of and Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and that mirror the following elements of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”):

  • The use of websites for the publication of information such as agendas, minutes and connected reports;
  • The ability of the public to attend meetings to act as ‘citizen journalists’ (facilitating the reporting of meetings by individuals on social media); and
  • Recording the decisions taken by officers.

Basically parts of the laws mentioned could do with being repealed to make the situation on filming clearer for both local Councils and those doing the filming. Otherwise there’ll be (once the secondary legislation is passed) about six different bits of law stating slightly different things about the filming issue which would be a recipe for confusion and misunderstandings (especially as each bit of law can be interpreted in different ways). Two of the acts were written before the Human Rights Act 1998 c.42 came into effect. Had they been drafted after 1998 the clauses about filming would have had to be drafted in such a way to take into account article 10 rights to freedom of expression.

The first bullet point I think refers to the media and bloggers publishing information such as agendas, minutes and reports on their blogs rather than linking to the official version on the website of the organisation they’re reporting on. This is already covered in respect of Cabinet meetings in the 2012 regulations, which also grants qualified privilege to publishers in respect of publication of these documents.

The second bullet point is about widening the definition of media to include those writing and publishing online. The current definition in the legislation of media (apart from Cabinet meetings n the 2012 regulations which already covers new media) covers newspapers, media agencies (those who supply stories to newspapers) and those recording sound or video for news broadcasts (local radio and TV) as well as those classed as programme services under the Broadcasting Act 1990. Curiously that last definition is so broad it covers publishing video footage of Wirral Council meetings online (or any public meeting of a local Council).

62. These changes follow what is already provided for in the 2012 Regulations.

My reading of this is that the secondary legislation resulting from this section of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill (apart from the potential for amending provisions of earlier legislation) will extend the regulations outlined in the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”) to all public meetings of local councils, as well as the other bodies specified in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill.

Examples of other bodies referred to in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill would be integrated transport authorities. Locally that would be Merseytravel (which may well be have changed completely and be absorbed into the Merseyside Combined Authority by the time the secondary legislation has effect) and the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority.

63. The Bill as amended would also provide that the Secretary of State has powers to ensure that the public can film, blog, or tweet at all meetings of a full council, its committees and sub-committees; meetings of an executive, its committees and sub-committees; meetings of parish and town councils and Greater London Assembly meetings. This is a new proposal which reflects the changes in technology enabling broader access to information and new methods of reporting and recording council meeting proceedings.

Personally I don’t have a mobile phone so I can’t blog or tweet live at a public meeting. If I remember correctly the guidance previously issued by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP on filming meetings relied on legislation that technically didn’t cover parish and town councils which caused some issues. I don’t know of any parish or town councils in the Wirral and as far as I know Greater London Assembly meetings are already filmed as I’m sure I’ve previously seen Boris Johnson facing questions as the Mayor of London on the BBC Parliament channel.

64. Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the ECHR may be engaged in relation to the provisions regarding openness of council meetings. Neither of these rights is absolute and they include in their respective second paragraphs details regarding the basis on which the right may be limited.

65. Article 8 has potential to be engaged but it appears unlikely in these circumstances. The meetings being open to public attendance are unlikely to fall within the definition of “private and family life”. Lord Hope and Lord Nicholls in the case of Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd [2004] UKHL 22 both made clear in their judgements that the first step to consider if the matter falls within the sphere of private and family life. The latter described the approach to take as follows: “the touchstone of private life is whether in respect of the disclosed facts that the person in question had a reasonable expectation of privacy”. The court in HRH Prince of Wales v Associates Newspapers Ltd [2006] EWCA 1776 highlighted that whilst there was a division over the conclusions in Campbell there was no division regarding the relevant approach in law. Given that the council meetings considered by the Bill would be held in public (unless there was a justifiable reason to exclude the public), it is difficult see a sustainable argument that attendees would have a reasonable expectation of privacy so as to engage Article 8.

Article 8 is a red herring really, as pointed out there can’t be an expectation of privacy at a public meeting open to anyone to attend where there could be over a hundred present (if it’s a particularly controversial planning application) who would hear what was said and see what was going on. From what I remember, even Wirral Council’s councillors have never claimed filming can’t happen on privacy grounds.

66. Whilst it is unlikely that the attendees’ Article 8 rights would be engaged, if a successful argument were to be made, paragraph 2 of Article 8 allows for the limitation of these rights. The Article 8 rights of those who are attending the meetings (cf. to those attending and reporting) can arguably be qualified on the basis that the limitation is:

a. in accordance with the law; as prescribed by the Bill and regulations made using the powers it contains.
b. is necessary in a democratic society. This is on the basis that wide public access to meetings and reporting on meetings increases accountability. The level of scrutiny which the public expect is influenced by the availability and ease of using different reporting methods, and this has increased since the advent of social media including blogging, tweeting etc and is further influenced by the ease of access to this technology. There is an expectation now that the public should have the ability to subject their representatives to closer and more direct scrutiny; an expectation that is shared both by members of the public and their representatives.
c. is for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others; namely the Article 10 rights of those reporting the meeting.

As pointed out above, article 8 is a qualified right and the rights of people to report public meetings has to be protected.

67. The provisions which would allow for regulations to be made on the prevention of the public from filming, reporting etc of council meetings may engage Article 10. However, it should be noted that it is envisaged that prevention of filming, reporting etc will largely be in the same circumstances in which the public would also be excluded from the meeting. As such the new provisions regarding prevention of filming, reporting etc would reflect the existing provisions on exclusion, including the common law right to exclude the public from meetings to suppress disorderly conduct. Insofar as there is a limitation on the Article 10 rights of potential attendees, this restriction can be justified on the basis that the prevention of filming, reporting etc and exclusion from meetings provisions are drafted in a manner to ensure those decisions are not arbitrary. For example the existing provisions on exclusion state the grounds on which a council may decide to hold a closed meeting, which include: where confidential or sensitive information is to be disclosed or discussed; or where the public are excluded under the common law right to suppress disorderly conduct. These reasons fall within the exceptions included within paragraph 2 of Article 10. Such reasons would be necessary in a democratic society if by not having the option to exclude public attendance would prevent the council from effectively carrying out its business. Furthermore, the exclusions would be prescribed by law as the justifications for preventing filming will be set out in the regulations and the justifications for exclusion from meetings are set out in primary legislation.

Firstly the issue of the press and public being excluded from a meeting, the suggestion that if the right to film covered the whole meeting meaning that recording equipment could be left behind and record the private part of the meeting is frankly a little ridiculous! However there are people that can stay and observe the private parts of meetings (such as other councillors and officers) that if the secondary legislation was poorly drafted would have a right to film or record these private sessions when the press and public were excluded.

I have no problem (and I don’t think anybody else would) with filming being prevented during parts of the meeting that the press and public are excluded from, however the phrase “largely be in the same circumstances” hints at other reasons to prevent filming which is worrying.

The common law right to suppress disorderly conduct is referred, yet it states “provisions are drafted in a manner to ensure those decisions are not arbitrary”. Last year at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, a Wirral councillor (Cllr Jerry Williams, Labour) (you can read the minutes for yourself here) went so far as to suggest that filming itself to him is regarded as disorderly conduct (rather embarrassingly six members of the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee then went on to use a piece of legislation that only applies to Cabinet meetings as a rationale to prevent filming).

An opinion as to what or what isn’t disorderly conduct is (as shown in the previous paragraph) entirely arbitrary and I hope the secondary legislation states explicitly that silently filming a meeting can’t be seen as grounds for exclusion from the meeting under the disorderly conduct provisions already in the legislation.

So repeating somewhat what I said above, in my view the justification of preventing filming by excluding the press and public from the meeting is fine, the issue of preventing abuse of the disorderly conduct provision in legislation to prevent filming needs to be explicitly stated and I can’t see there being any other justifications for preventing filming.

68. Article 11, freedom of assembly and association, should also be considered. The right to freedom of assembly includes participation in public meetings. However, Article 11 is a qualified right which can be restricted. The basis of the restrictions include that is in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. As such the position in relation justifying qualification of Article 11 is much the same as it is for Article 10 freedom of expression.

The right of the public to be at public meetings is already in legislation and the fact that Article 11 specifically states “peaceful assembly” means that article 11 isn’t engaged if people engage in disorderly conduct. I presume this is referring to the public and press being excluded from private sessions of meetings.

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Labour U-turn on filming of Wirral Council public meetings

Labour U-turn on filming of Wirral Council public meetings, a report on the second reading of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill including quotes from the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP and Hilary Benn MP on the subject of filming Council meetings

Labour U-turn on filming of Wirral Council public meetings

                          

It’s rare I write a blog post on a Sunday but I thought it best to write an update about how the issue of filming of council meetings (at least in England) is progressing as it was discussed in the House of Commons on Monday 28th October as part of the second reading of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill.

I will quote from what MPs said in that debate along with my own comments on what was said. The quotes are from Hansard, you can also watch video footage of the debate on Parliament TV (the date was Monday 28th October 2013), but as the debate went on for many hours it can be difficult to find the parts about filming.

First to speak on this issue was the Minister for Communities and Local Government, the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP who said, “Perhaps our most significant proposal is to give people the right to film, blog or tweet at council meetings. Some councils would prefer meetings to be held behind closed doors, but the public has the right to see decisions being taken and how the money is spent.

A private Member’s Bill promoted by Mrs Thatcher introduced the right to attend council meetings back in 1960, and that in turn built on a law introduced by the Liberal Government of 1908, so this is truly a coalition of minds. It is right that we should now bring her legacy up to date for the digital age. We have previously amended secondary legislation to open up councils’ executive meetings and have encouraged councils to open up their full council and committees. Many have refused, however, citing health and safety, data protection or just standing orders. Tower Hamlets said that such a change would lead to “reputational damage”. Well, yes, it probably will when people see what is going on in their council chambers. There have even been cases of the police being called to threaten bloggers with arrest. We will therefore make the necessary changes to primary legislation to allow full councils and committees to be open as well.

Our argument is that the coalition Government are scrapping the top-down red tape of Whitehall inspection and micro-management. That will save taxpayers’ money and help to devolve power, but it must go hand in hand with local transparency and accountability. We must ensure an independent free press and scrutinise and challenge bad decisions by councils. Individual taxpayers and the new wave of citizen journalists must be let in to conduct their own scrutiny. We are localising audit and scrapping protection, while ensuring that there is protection against the bad old days of municipal corruption. In short, the Bill will deliver greater openness, stronger local democracy, accountability and significant savings for the taxpayer. I commend it to the House.”

My comments on what Eric Pickles said are that currently the public (and press) already have the right to film, blog and tweet at Wirral Council meetings already which is granted to them by article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Human Rights Act 1998 c.42. It is unlawful for any council to act in a way that is incompatible with article 10 (freedom of expression) due to section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

The legislation introduced by Margaret Thatcher referred to by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP is the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 c.67. The secondary legislation referred to by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP is the more recent Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (which at Wirral Council only applies to Cabinet meetings and decisions made by individual Cabinet Members).

“Many have refused, however, citing health and safety, data protection” seems to be a reference to Wirral Council, this tweet below of mine from June shows my frustration as both reasons were given in reference to a Planning Committee meeting, the same reasons (although apart from that one Planning Committee meeting not used together at the same meeting) have been given at other Wirral Council meetings in the past twelve months too. Wirral Council have never given standing orders as a reason as there isn’t anything in their current constitution (or past constitution) about it. Personally I’ve never been threatened with arrest or the police for trying to film a meeting, although in other parts of the UK people have.

Hilary Benn MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said on the issue of filming, “We will therefore support that change, and also the proposal that councils in England should allow the recording and videoing of council and committee meetings. In this day and age, big changes in technology make recording and videoing readily possible, and I cannot see the difference between sitting in a meeting, listening and writing down what is being said, or—for those who have shorthand—taking a verbatim record, and making one’s own recording.

As the Secretary of State acknowledged, a new generation of bloggers is relating to politics in a different way, which we should all warmly welcome—frankly, the more people who get to hear what their local council is doing, the better. Who knows? Perhaps this House will one day follow suit and allow those watching us to keep their own records of proceedings—indeed, I may one day be tempted to record the Secretary of State from across the Dispatch Box. I have, however, a sneaking suspicion that Brass Crosby—who, as some Members will know, was committed to the Tower of London in the 1770s for daring as Lord Mayor to release a newspaper editor who had had the audacity to report what was happening in Parliament—and indeed Thomas Hansard, after whom the Official Report is named, would both thoroughly approve of that change.”

The reason why this would only apply to councils in England is because in the other parts of the UK (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) that it’s up to the Welsh Assembly Government, Scottish Parliament or Northern Ireland Assembly to decide whether they want this sort of change. Hilary Benn is right that at the moment anyone could publish a verbatim account of Council meetings, the main difference between that and an audio recording is that an audio recording also records how something is said.

Video adds an extra element of body language though, not just of the person speaking but of the reaction of other politicians to what’s being said. Hilary Benn also went as far as to tweet about this (his tweet is below):

I welcome Hilary Benn’s tweet and Labour’s support for a change in the law to make things clearer to local councils. I have seen in the past Labour councillors criticise during a Council meeting one of the opposition councillor groups for taking a different policy position to that of their party nationally. I hope Wirral Labour councillors will take heed of the tweet of their frontbench spokesperson Hilary Benn on the matter.

The next stage in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill’s progress through the House of Commons is the Committee stage which was on November 4th at 4pm in Committee Room 13 at the Palace of Westminster (ironically for a bill with accountability in the title this stage is being held in private not public). I’m sure myself and many other bloggers in England will be keen to follow this bill and await the text of the amendments to the Local Audit and Accountability Bill in relation to filming with interest.

The tweet of Labour’s spokesperson nationally on this issue will hopefully prevent any attempts by Wirral Labour councillors at censorship of filming of Wirral Council meetings between now and when the bill becomes law, as if they do try to stop filming they will lay themselves open to the criticism they make of others in saying one thing nationally, but doing another at the local level.

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 28th September 2012 Any Other Urgent Business Approved by the Chair

Any Other Business, Wirral Council’s Cabinet 28th September 2012

Interest declaration: The author is a member of a trade union and a member of the media affected by this law change.

There was an Any Other Business item at Wirral Council’s Cabinet last night, with a recommendation from Surjit Tour, the Acting Director of Law, Human Resources & Asset Management (which was agreed). It seems to be in response to a point I made a week ago by email to a Wirral Council councillor when the Cabinet agenda was published and follows on from this blog post, as the law referred to came into effect on the 10th September 2012.

I had previously brought it up with my trade union, that Wirral Council didn’t seem to be complying with the new law, which is why I followed the approach suggested and brought it up with Wirral Council’s legal team and the people involved. One councillor on the Cabinet has asked for an email about it which I will write in the near future.

URGENT BUSINESS

Recommendation

That Cabinet authorises the Council’s Chief Officers to seek all requisite consents and/or agreement on behalf of Cabinet from relevant persons as required by The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 where an item to be considered by Cabinet includes exempt information and it is not possible to provide at least 28 clear days notice of that item.

Personally, it’s not quite resulting in the outcome of considerably more openness and accountability I had hoped for (although most legislation has caveats and loopholes that can be exploited). It is however, a step in the right direction as it (hopefully) provides a check and balance on the executive power of the all-Labour Cabinet’s future attempts to make decisions behind closed doors resulting in less scrutiny from the press and public, as really (because to do so without giving 28 days notice they have to first seek consent from the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee first) should (unless officers and councillors are deliberately trying to make an administration make major decisions in secret) only happen very rarely.

This seems to be one small step on the way to complying with the legislation (whether the spirit and intent behind the legislation is followed depends how Wirral Council implement it in practice), which means regulation 5(2) and 5(3) don’t have to be complied with (see regulation 5(6)) if the part of the meeting held in private is “urgent and cannot reasonably be deferred” and they get the agreement of the relevant Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (or if they’re not available others are mentioned)).

Personally as last night’s Cabinet meeting (it wasn’t a special meeting but a regular one) was in the calendar of meetings decided on the 12th April 2012 and it was a matter that had been known about since 26th June 2012, why wasn’t the 28 clear days notice given (which would’ve had to have been given around the end of August 2012)? Well firstly, the Colas matter did need urgent attention (as Colas have been behaving churlishly since the public interest report by the Audit Commission as to how the contract was awarded to them was published and announced they don’t want the contract past 2014. So who’s Cabinet Portfolio does these two items fall under? It’s Cllr Harry Smith’s (Labour), the Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport.

Personally I think it should be the relevant Cabinet Member or Cabinet asking for consent from another councillor rather than Chief Officers on their behalf, although the legislation can be interpreted in different ways. In my opinion what was agreed last night puts too much power in Chief Officer’s hands, whose powers of persuasion over Wirral councillors are well-known.