In my last column, I suggested I would provide an insight into what your local Council may have in mind for the next 3½ years. This was done working on the assumption that the Liberal Democrat controlled council would follow the principles of democracy and bring decision making down to the lowest effective level. It appears that now they have power, this has gone out of the window.
When the Independents were elected in 1995, they were accused of not knowing what they were doing (true) and doing their best to inform the public on what they were doing (also true). They were frustrated in the rules governing Parish Councils, yes, the Town Council is one, and I believe most residents accept that if nothing else, they did know what the Town Council got up to, whether you supported it or not.
One of the first things the newly elected Council did was to pick up on the previous Councils idea of shortening the committee cycle, reducing the number of committees and generally speeding things up. What a joke. They promptly increased the number of members in the reduced number of committees, introduced the working party principle to almost every subject that needed decisions making and now the Finance & Policy Committee chairman appears to have decreed that committees can take final and binding decisions.
Let's have a look at each of these changes. The Council membership increased from 13 to 15 under local government reorganisation. However, the numbers on the standing committees increased from 6 to 10. The reasoning, I believe was that more Committee members would provide a decision that the Council was more likely to agree with. This logic makes sense until you then start adding little working parties to present recommendations to committee for a final decision.
These working parties are not public, nor are the agendas and minutes public. So, it appears that a committee can set up a working party to bring forward a recommendation to a committee that can then bind the council to any legal course of action. Up to this 'Liberal-Democrat' Council, all standing committees would discuss almost everything in public and make a recommendation to the full Council. Now it appears a recommendation can go to a standing committee, without anything being made public and that committee (which need only comprise of 5 out of 15 council members) can bind the Council to a course of action. I have looked through my February 1999 copy of the Councils Standing Orders and it appears that sub-committees can be appointed (which are public), but I cannot find any reference to Working Parties (which appear not to be). So much for democracy! I trust that 'Liberal-democrat' members of this Council will be able to defend this procedure to the public.

The new Council Committees are Environment, Planning, Finance & Policy (with an Accounts & Grants sub-committee) together with an Urgency sub-committee of the Council. They have done away with Transport & Highways (now a 'working party'), which included police liaison and Road Safety input. Even the Liberal-Democrats' own pet committee, Community (in)Action was dropped. This included things such as the Chairman, Cllr. Sharpe, reading out lists of documents received by either the Town Clerk or himself and suggesting that the Council make a response of one kind or the other to Borough, County or National Government. Having spoken to the Town Clerk, it appears that Council and Standing Committees will have their meeting dates, agendas and minutes made public. Sub-Committees will be open to the public, but not advertised (the comment made was that if you happen to be in the Council office when one is in progress, you may attend!) and working parties will not normally have agendas, meeting dates or reports/minutes made public. He also pointed out that working parties are set up generally to address a single subject and are 'temporary' in nature. This implies that the Parish Paths Partnership; Transport & Highways; Accounts & Grants; Town Promotion; Allotment Management working parties, to name just the ones mentioned in the August cycle, address a single subject and are 'temporary'! The Council does, however, have the right to change this situation, let's hope that now it has been brought to its' attention, the word 'democrat' can rightly be put back into 'Liberal-democrat. I should point out that at no time did the Town Clerk consider the activities of the Council should be considered secret. Not made public or even just economical (with Council resources in mind), but secret - never!

It's all fun and games over at the Borough Council as well. As you must be aware, the Conservatives are hanging onto power often by the casting (second) vote of the committee chairman or the Mayor. All the parties are playing the musical chairs game by ensuring that membership of each committee is changed regularly to take into account holidays and other 'foreseen' eventualities. In case you were not aware, Town and Borough Councillor Peter Ginger is poorly as I write and having spoken to him at the end of August, trust he will be continuing his council activities by the time you read this. I'm sure I can repeat the message 'get well soon - we all miss you' from all residents of the town and all who know him.