30 December - Never had it so good
I
resisted getting involved with a recent Twitter argument between a resident and Mayor James
Hunt over public questions at Full Council meetings. As far as can be judged from
a one sided view of the debate it is that Council staff are insisting that
questions are only one sentence long. Aren’t all well phrased questions one
sentence long? Do we always need a long explanatory preamble?
Most of Bexley Council’s Scrutiny Meeting Chairmen insist on no preceding
statements and I don’t see anything wrong with that, there are too many
Councillors who love the sound of their own voices scoring political points.
If single sentence questions are now the biggest obstacle to democracy in Bexley
we have come a long way since 2011.
Back then the Council
proposed the following restrictions on questions…
• To disallow filming of meetings because the result may be edited.
(Presumably Bob Neill, the Local Government Minister, was entirely unaware that videos could be edited when he made his recommendations to Councils.)
• To recommend web casting once the new Civic Centre is ready. i.e. kick the idea into the long grass.
• That the Mayor may disallow questions from anyone he/she may have taken a dislike to.
• That questions which are in any way similar to another asked within the last six months will not be permitted.
• Residents whose questions are accepted will have their personal details, name and address etc. published on the Council’s website.
• Questions relating to staffing levels and salaries will not be permitted.
• The mayor will be given permission to throw out any questioner who (s)he deems disrespectful, the judgment being entirely his/hers.
• If the questioner fails to attend the meeting his/her question will be rejected.
• If any question is accepted (but rewarded with a non-answer or falsehood) the questioner will not be allowed to raise a secondary question.
The adopted rules were slightly different. The secondary question was allowed but if the Mayor
deemed it in any way objectionable the questioner would not be allowed to ask a question ever again.
The hypocrisy was beyond belief. The publishing of residents’ addresses was
pushed through by Councillors who with just one exception would not allow their
own addresses to be revealed by their Register of Interests.
In practice things were slightly different. Planted questions from Conservative
Party Members were allowed even if that member was absent and at the other
extreme, and on just one infamous occasion, a question was rejected for no
other reason than the questioner had some years earlier been a member of the BNP
because it was the
only party that was supporting Brexit.
Planted questions were extremely dangerous, in conjunction with the six month rule straight answers to awkward
questions became an impossibility.
The period prior to 2015 was a very dark one for Bexley Council. It is no
exaggeration to say that criminal behaviour was not uncommon and a close rapport
with the police was an essential part of the Council’s defensive armoury.
Someone must have taken the decision that their act must be cleaned up. Those
interesting days are long gone and congratulations are due. I doubt the current Mayor interferes with questions, he says he doesn’t,
but it was definitely the norm way back when.
I’d happily settle for single sentence questions and wasting as little time as possible.
Note: I am not aware that any of the Question Rules were ever formally changed
despite some having obviously fallen by the wayside.