Agenda item

To answer any public questions. A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of this Committee.

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Committee or an item which is on the Agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

Tony Johnson asked the Chair the following question:

Information published as regards the outcome of the public consultation on the Election Cycle appears to be:

·           Inadequate for Member (<2 days) or Public (<0.5 day) understanding.

·           Inconsistent with Rules 3.2.7 & 3.2.8 of WBC's Constitution.

·           Inconsistent with the provisions of clauses of the Local Government Act 1972 and the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960.

·           An analysis which omits to mention that out of circa1000 written responses - 40% were in favour of “all-out” and 60% were in favour of “thirds”.

·           An analysis which gave mis-impression by omitting over 450 responses on topics the summary did mention.

·           An analysis which failed to acknowledge 27 public challenges as regards the true costs of elections.

·           An analysis which omitted any public concern or challenge as to the conduct of the consultation.

·           “Information Hiding” of Appendix B by publishing on a lower level web-page.

·           Providing a misleading answer to a public question at a Council Meeting.

And where publication of a non-existent clause in WBC’s Constitution - Rule 6.3.34 d) - may have led to suppression Call-In of the Executive’s decision in January.

Please could the Council explain why this pattern of conduct occurred?

Answer:

At the meeting of the Extraordinary Council on 22 June, Members received an officer report on the electoral cycle which included a range of information including a section summarising the results of a public consultation.

The detailed consultation feedback was highlighted in the report as a “background” document. This means that the information is available to Members and the public, and, in fact, the document was provided in advance of the meeting to all Members and uploaded as a background document on the relevant agenda page on the Council’s website.

As a background document, it was dealt with in accordance with Rule 3.2.10 of the Constitution, which states that such documents will be made available for public inspection for four years after the date of the meeting. 

Notwithstanding the above, in the interests of continuous improvement, I understand the Monitoring Officer is reviewing what learning may be appropriate to ensure the Council can provide the further assurance to members of the public like yourself that the Council does not, as you suggest “hide” information but meets its commitment of full and open transparency.

Turning now to your query about the January 2022 Executive meeting, I can confirm that Rule 6.3.34d) does exist and states that “no decision taken by the Council or due to be referred to Council for final approval” can be called-in.  Therefore the decision, relating to Whole Council Elections, made by the Executive in January, which I believe is what you are referring to, was not eligible for call-in as it was due for consideration at the February Council meeting.

Supplementary Question

This is not an expression of concern about service delivery and it is not a complaint about a specific person’s or persons’ conduct at this time. In the content of Appendix B there are 20 allegations of bias. There are 15 concerns as to the voting methodology, specifically voting twice. The word condescending appears. The word patronising appears. I am happy to circulate details of this and my analysis to you.

If the Nolan Standards are to mean anything around here, what action does the Standards Committee propose to take to improve the conduct of everybody?

Supplementary Answer

That is a good question which requires considerable thought and attention. As you know, I am new to this role, so I will provide a written answer in due course.