‘We have to reconstruct committees that are so badly needed for public assurance’

There are several variations on how councils can be run, and it is interesting that South Gloucestershire has gone back to the committee system, where councillors are involved in debates on many subjects. At the end of the day, the party with the majority of councillors will still prevail, but there is definitely a more free flow of information to many councillors and to the public. More people in the know should lead to more ideas coming forward, and better decision-making.

The more common system splits the decision making body (the cabinet) from the rest of the council, that organises itself to examine, and criticise, where necessary, the administration.

So far so good, but there are several problems with this system. Information is often withheld and so the right questions do not get asked. In those situations, members of the ruling party not in the cabinet or inner circle are torn in opposing directions. Do they ask the awkward questions and embarrass their party colleagues in the cabinet, or do they say little and have a quiet life?

Realists and cynics will also observe that asking awkward questions can damage party career prospects, though this varies dramatically depending upon the party.

The public tend to find scrutiny boring because the committees have no direct power. If there is not a common purpose among the parties on a scrutiny committee, the agenda will be dominated by a series of routine reports from officers eating up time and keeping members away from juicy subjects, where they could have something to say.

Some committees, with good chairing, have overcome these problems and contributed very useful work that has been well recognised, but they are a minority and all of the potential problems are magnified tenfold in the mayoral system. A party leader who treats their councillors with disdain and governs badly can be removed by that party; a mayor cannot. The power is all one way.

It is even more amazing, therefore, that the chair of Bristol’s Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (a Tory, because they have the second highest number of councillors) recently instigated the abolition of Scrutiny Commissions and replaced them with shambolic ‘Task and Finish Groups’, that meet in secret and where there is no requirement for proper record keeping.

This has had the affect that some of us predicted: of allowing the administration to sink to new depths and to get away with it in secret. Fortunately this ‘experiment’ has, after just a few months, been acknowledged as a massive failure. But we are now going to have a difficult task to reconstruct, hopefully in a modernised form, the standing committees that are so badly needed for public assurance.

The Audit Committee, which the administration wants to neuter, is still in existence and has been asked by the representatives of three parties to thoroughly investigate the recruitment and subsequent resignation of our recent chief executive. This seven-month, rather expensive, reign of the council’s chief executive has proved very controversial, with the mayor seemingly hiding a large pay out.

There are attempts to squash this enquiry and all who want to know about this subject and to prevent repeats should sign the public petition at www.taxpayersmoney.weebly.com.

Gary Hopkins is a Liberal Democrat councillor for the ward of Knowle.