Council constitution to be reviewed
This week's re-scheduling of Cornwall Council's emergency budget meeting raised questions (on this blog, if nowhere else) of the political propriety of vesting so much power in the hands of the chairman. I am not for a minute suggesting that there was any impropriety - political group leaders were consulted and did not object to the re-scheduling - but the question remains, what if there had been objections? What if 31 councillors had turned up on Tuesday and as a quorate group demanded to hold a meeting and fix the budget?
Richard Williams, who is also the council's monitoring officer, accepts that the constitution does not explicity give authority to the chairman to re-schedule a meeting once it has been called. He told me it was a "common sense" solution to concerns over public safety. But he also accepts that the constitution as currently framed might be open to abuse in future, with meetings re-scheduled at short notice simply for political convenience. So he is to review the document, possibly with a view to adding words such as "after consultation with political group leaders" to bring the chairman's powers more in line with those of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Congratulations to correspondent John Macloud for advancing the democratic process through this blog.
I'm 大象传媒 Radio Devon鈥檚 Graham Smith, blogging on news, views and some fresh insights into West Country life, particularly the way government works locally and nationally.
Comment number 1.
At 1st Dec 2010, John Macloud wrote:Graham, well done! I am sure some people would think this is all a bit irrelevant but the constitution of the Council and how it is interpreted and used is important.
It may well have been sensible to decide to cancel the meeting on Tuesday due to bad weather, but it has been accepted by the Council that the Chairman had no power under its constitution to act in this way (nor indeed as you point out has the Speaker of the House of Commons). If a Council begins to believe it can operate in way not permitted by its own constitution, however well intentioned the decision, this is the start of a potential slippery slope and could open the way to abuse of the decision making process for political convenience or advantage.
As the Council鈥檚 own explanation and summary of the constitution says:
鈥淐ornwall Council, which operates Strong Leader executive arrangements
through a Cabinet, has agreed a new Constitution which sets out how the
Council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures which are
followed to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to
local people.鈥
I would, though, be more convinced that the Council wishes to be transparent and accountable to local people in deciding its Emergency Budget if it had given at least five clear days notice of calling the new meeting (as envisaged in national legislation) and also timed it so that it takes place after the announcement by Government next week of the Rate Support Grant Settlement which will state precisely how much Government grant Cornwall will get. As it is, Councillors are being asked to set a budget on best estimates of this. Why not wait a few more days and they can have the real figures?
The administration could also be more open about its intentions to outsource or privatise services by means of transferring them to trusts, arms length management organisations, companies and private sector joint ventures as briefly set out in the report that went to its Cabinet.
What are the implications for services and the public? Is this likely to lead to service reductions over and above the cuts already highlighted? What are the implications for the workforce? Will it lead to more job losses and wage cuts over and above those currently anticipated? None of this is clear from the papers yet councillors are being asked to make decisions now which will commit them to going down the outsourcing road. It may or may not be the right route to go. But once started it will be difficult to turn back.
So as for 鈥渁dvancing the democratic process鈥 鈥 I am doubtful. And I imagine the people of Camelford currently have little faith in the democratic process given the way the issue of their leisure centre has been dealt with so far.
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Comment number 2.
At 2nd Dec 2010, backofanenvelope wrote:Surely the central government has given the council a heads up on the level of funding over the next 4 years? As to the people of Camelford, why don't they try raising the money themselves?
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