Just a year after the Council opened up the Town Hall making it easier for Members of the Public to raise questions of the council, a motion has been passed to limit time for public questions.
Councillor Caroline Russell said
“At Full Council, We were asked to vote on reducing the the time allocated for questions from the public in favour of more time for questions from elected members. Rather than being an opportunity to open up democracy, this looks like a super majority council proposing to decrease the time given to members of the public to question the work of the council and to cap the time spent answering questions raised by residents
This amendment to our constitution is undemocratic. Public questions must take priority over members’ questions. Members clearly need to ask questions of the executive but we do have other channels. I urged my fellow councillors to vote the motion down so a better proposal could be brought forward to our next meeting. But they all voted to cut the time for public questions.”
Notes:
Speech by Cllr Caroline Russell in response to ITEM 8 Amendments to the constitution at Islington Full Council on 15th October 2015
You can imagine, as a sole opposition councillor I’m all for opening up democracy and encouraging public participation in our meetings.
This change to our constitution is presented as an opportunity to “further increase the numbers of members of the public able to engage in the new question time.” That sounds great.
However examination of Appendix 1 19.2 reveals a very different story.
d. imposes a new limit on time for public questions of 30 minutes. Leaving, and I quote, “all remaining time for members questions.”
f. imposes a new time limit of 2 minutes on asking a question or supplementary question
Then
At item k. a new time limit is imposed on replies to questions which “shall not exceed 3 minutes or 2 minutes in the case of supplementary questions”
So while we may achieve an increase in the numbers of people participating in meetings by imposing time limits on questions and the replies, the overall time given in our meeting for members of the public to challenge the councils actions is being cut in half.
And while I can see that encouraging our executive members to be concise in their responses do we really have to close down the option of a longer response to achieve that?
Surely public questions should take priority over members’ questions.
Members clearly need to ask questions of the executive but we do have other channels
Public questions MUST take precedence
We appear to be being asked to vote on reducing the opportunity for questions from the public in favour of more time for questions from members.
Rather than being an opportunity to open up democracy, this looks like a super majority Labour council proposing:
• to decrease the time given to members of the public to question the work of the council
• and to cap the time spent answering questions raised by residents
This amendment to our constitution is undemocratic and I urge my fellow councillors to vote it down so a better proposal can be brought forward to our next meeting