LIMITING the length of meetings to three hours has been questioned by a member of Cumberland Council.
Councillor Helen Davison (Belah, Green Party) was speaking at a meeting of the full council at the Civic Centre in Carlisle on Tuesday (July 9) during the time allowed for questions with notice.
In her question, which was taken as read, she said: "At our last full council meeting of April 30, 2024, a decision by our leading group not to extend the meeting time meant that we only had about 15 minutes to question all the portfolio holders on their reports.
"That left some councillors unable to ask their questions in the public meeting. This is just not good enough.
"It suggests to those of us on the outside of the leading group that the executive really do not want their activities and decisions questioned in a public forum. Where is the openness and transparency in this?
"Our council is dealing with huge numbers of important issues around our local public services. The role of the opposition is to hold executive to account on their decisions on these.
"And given that all the chairs of scrutiny are now also from the Labour group, it could be perceived that the executive are doing all they can to control the narrative coming out of the council and reduce any criticism of things they are doing. This is not good for local democracy.
"So, what measures will the leader of the council put in place to ensure that we are not again left in the situation that councillors don’t have the opportunity to put their questions to the portfolio holders within the public meeting setting?"
Councillor Mark Fryer (St Johns and Great Clifton, Labour) the leader of the council, said the three hour time limit was written into the council constitution group and added: "That's quite a significant length of time."
He said the matter could be further explored by a constitution review group and a recent time saving measure which had been introduced was to take members' questions as read. He added: "Reading out questions was taking up quite a significant amount of time."
Cllr Fryer said the review group could consider moves such as limiting the number of questions but said that some were more like speeches with an element of political grandstanding.
He added: "I am happy to work with any member who wants to get on with delivering the priorities of this council."
However, cllr Davison said the meetings at the former Cumbria County Council went on "significantly longer". She added: "The questions that have been asked raised some important issues."
She suggested that a working group be formed to look at the length of meetings and cllr Fryer said that in recent meetings the same questions had been asked repeatedly.
He said that the answers were still the same and added: "If we to serve our communities better it is better to go straight to the officers."
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