Agenda item

Motion A: Public participation in Council

Proposed by Councillor Louis Savage

Seconded by Councillor Diggory Seacome

 

"This Council seeks to be as open, accessible and accountable as possible to the people of Cheltenham. It aims to actively promote public participation in future council meetings, including facilitating attendance in the public gallery, and receiving questions and petitions from members of the public. 

Council will:

-Ensure members of the public receive answers to questions 1 working day prior to Council meetings

-Record the number of members of the public present during council meetings, and include this in the minutes

-Ensure available Multimedia is utilised effectively in Full Council to ensure proceedings and discussions are accessible and intelligible to people in the public gallery"

 

Motion A – Remembering Srebrenica

Proposed by: Councillor Colin Hay

Seconded by: Councillor Paul McCloskey

 

“This Council:

• Notes that 2016 is the twenty-first anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which saw over 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by Serbian nationalist forces.
• Notes that in 2009 the European Parliament passed a resolution that 11 July should be recognised as the day of commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide all over the EU; and in 2015 urged the development of educational and cultural programmes that promote an understanding of the causes of such atrocities and raise awareness about the need to nurture peace and to promote human rights and interreligious tolerance.
• Applauds the work of those involved in the pursuit of justice for the victims and their surviving relatives, including the International Commission of Missing People (ICMP) and the Mothers of Srebrenica, whose courage and humility in the face of unthinkable horror is an inspiration to us all.
• Commends the work of the charity, Remembering Srebrenica, in raising awareness of this tragic and preventable genocide and working in communities across Britain to help them learn the lessons of Srebrenica.

 

The Council resolves to:

 

• Support Srebrenica memorial events in July each year in Cheltenham as part of the UK-wide Remembering Srebrenica Memorial Week.

 

• Support the work of Remembering Srebrenica in communities across in Cheltenham Borough Council to learn the lessons from Srebrenica to tackle hatred and intolerance to help build a better, safer and more cohesive society for everyone. “

 

 

 

 

Motion A: Public participation in Council

Proposed by Councillor Louis Savage

Seconded by Councillor Diggory Seacome

 

"This Council seeks to be as open, accessible and accountable as possible to the people of Cheltenham. It aims to actively promote public participation in future council meetings, including facilitating attendance in the public gallery, and receiving questions and petitions from members of the public. 

Council will:

-Ensure members of the public receive answers to questions 1 working day prior to Council meetings

-Record the number of members of the public present during council meetings, and include this in the minutes

-Ensure available Multimedia is utilised effectively in Full Council to ensure proceedings and discussions are accessible and intelligible to people in the public gallery"

 

In proposing the motion, Councillor Savage suggested that questioners currently had limited time to digest the answers given and to prepare their supplementary questions which in practice had the most clout. He was keen to use the full range of multimedia facilities and cited the Planning Committee as a good example of where they were used to help explain aspects of the meeting to people in the chamber and in the public gallery. He was aware that some items in Council could be quite dry or difficult to follow in terms of the procedures and he felt the use of the OHP could help people to keep up.

 

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services, Councillor Whyborn welcomed the motion and was keen to reply positively to it. He supported the need for more openness in politics and he referred to the Mayor's earlier proposals for improving the process of public and Member questions.

 

He proposed the following amendment which was seconded by Councillor McKinlay.

 

Delete all and replace by:-

"This Council seeks to be as open, accessible and accountable as possible to the people of Cheltenham. It aims to actively promote public participation in future council meetings, including facilitating attendance in the public gallery, and receiving questions and petitions from members of the public. 

 

Council will:

-Continue to ensure members of the public receive answers to questions during the morning prior to Council meetings, with the aim to reply by 10 am prior to a 2:30 pm meeting.

-Maintain adequate paperwork to the public gallery to meet anticipated attendance.

-Explore the costs and practicalities to use  Multimedia effectively in Full Council to enhance accessibility of the meetings to both the public gallery and beyond. "

 

In proposing the amendment, he said it was not practical for the deadline for responses to be brought back by 24 hours. The timeline for preparing responses had already been reduced by 24 hours in 2012 in order to give the public and Members more time to prepare their questions after the publication of the agenda and he did not want to reverse that decision. The proposal to have questions available by 10 a.m. on the day of the meeting should give more than enough time to clarify any issues with the responses given. The aim was not an opportunity to prepare a particular difficult supplementary question.

 

He saw no added value in counting the number of people in the public gallery.

 

He felt that there was a particular problem with Members having to stand to speak and in order to demonstrate this and with the Mayors indulgence he sat down for the rest of his speech. He was keen to progress the use of multimedia and he advised members that in June this year a company called public I had attended to give a presentation on web casting facilities. There was a significant cost involved typically £12-14 K per annum and significant setup costs. He had requested officers to investigate whether any cheaper alternatives were available. He advised that he had sat up in the public gallery for the presentation before Council and he had been able to hear very clearly.

 

In a point of order Councillor Babbage questioned whether the amendment reversed the original motion and therefore was invalid.

 

The Head of Legal Services advised that he was satisfied that the amendments satisfy the terms of the constitution set out in the Council Procedure rules in 13.12 of the Constitution.

 

The Mayor advised that during her Term of Office she preferred Members to stand up as a mark of respect for herself as Mayor, the Mace and the Queen. 

 

In seconding the motion Councillor McKinlay didn't disagree with the aim to make the Council meeting more accessible to the public, but pointed out that people tended to come when there was an issue they were deeply concerned about. Although bringing forward the deadline for responses by 24 hours may at first sound reasonable it was impractical. Some of the questions were very technical and needed input from officers and the Cabinet Members needed to ensure all the answers were coherent. The risk was if the preparation time was shortened that Members or the public would then get holding responses rather than the full technical answer they were looking for. The options for using multimedia was something that could be looked at more closely.

 

Other Cabinet Members supported the current timescales regarding questions citing the need to properly research the answers. It was highlighted that in other councils Members asking supplementary questions were frequently provided with a holding response promising a written reply which was something this council wanted to avoid. 

 

Councillor Savage as the proposer of the original motion accepted the amendment and therefore this became the substantive motion.

 

A Member was concerned that at the last meeting the public did not get proper answers to their questions and if they asked their question again they would lose their right to a supplementary. He suggested there should be a mechanism for questioners going back to the Cabinet Member before the meeting if they felt their question had not been answered so that they would still have an opportunity to ask a supplementary question at the meeting.

 

Several Members referred to the incidents at the last meeting during public and member questions. One Member suggested that it must be impressed upon members of the public in the gallery that they were not allowed to participate in the meeting. It was noted that there was a hearing loop which worked very effectively both in the chamber and in the gallery for those who are hard of hearing.  Another Member highlighted that generally the public come to Council meetings when they felt passionate about a particular issue. In this case it was more appropriate to control any interruptions rather than seek to stop them entirely. It was also important for Members to respect each other and the process for questions and keep their supplementary questions and the responses concise. 

 

Several Members referred to the practical issues arising from standing up to speak and Members of the public attending previous meetings had indicated that they could not hear clearly in the gallery. Whilst respecting the current Mayor’s preference for standing there was a suggestion from a Member that there could be a trial at a future meeting where standing orders could be suspended to allow Members to remain seated whilst addressing the Council. If this made it easier for the public to hear that should be a priority. There was also no requirement to stand up at other meetings such as Planning and Licensing committees. A former Mayor advised Members that when he had first been on the council 40 years ago, there were no microphones and Members had to use their voice and learn how to project it. He suggested that this could be an area of further training for Members. Other Members had referred to sitting down to speak in other committees but he pointed out that the mace was not present at those meetings and he personally would feel uncomfortable in changing the current tradition for Council.

A member suggested that the current sound system in the chamber had become an embarrassment and the system was not fit for purpose. He urged that when the council move to a new building the optimum use of new technology was made when considering the facilities available. It was suggested that a Cabinet Member Working group could be set up to meet on an annual basis to review the progress in technology and how it can be utilised at council meetings.

 

Members welcomed the use of OHP and felt the introduction at this particular meeting had been useful. Webcasting was also being used very successfully in other councils and at GCC. A Member thought that if introduced it should be used consistently across all committees and would provide a permanent record of the exact words that had been said so that Members could be held to account.

 

The proposer Councillor Savage thanked Members for a very interesting debate and he hoped that the council would now be able to enact some simple cost neutral measures to improve public participation in the meeting.

Upon a vote on the motion as amended was carried unanimously.

The Mayor announced that the Council meeting had now been in session for four hours and upon a show of hands Members indicated that the meeting should continue.

 

Motion B – Remembering Srebrenica

Proposed by: Councillor Colin Hay

Seconded by: Councillor Paul McCloskey

 

“This Council:

• Notes that 2016 is the twenty-first anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which saw over 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by Serbian nationalist forces.
• Notes that in 2009 the European Parliament passed a resolution that 11 July should be recognised as the day of commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide all over the EU; and in 2015 urged the development of educational and cultural programmes that promote an understanding of the causes of such atrocities and raise awareness about the need to nurture peace and to promote human rights and interreligious tolerance.
• Applauds the work of those involved in the pursuit of justice for the victims and their surviving relatives, including the International Commission of Missing People (ICMP) and the Mothers of Srebrenica, whose courage and humility in the face of unthinkable horror is an inspiration to us all.
• Commends the work of the charity, Remembering Srebrenica, in raising awareness of this tragic and preventable genocide and working in communities across Britain to help them learn the lessons of Srebrenica.

 

The Council resolves to:

 

• Support Srebrenica memorial events in July each year in Cheltenham as part of the UK-wide Remembering Srebrenica Memorial Week.

 

• Support the work of Remembering Srebrenica in communities across in Cheltenham Borough Council to learn the lessons from Srebrenica to tackle hatred and intolerance to help build a better, safer and more cohesive society for everyone. “

 

In proposing the motion, Councillor Hay explained that he had been part of a delegation visiting Bosnia where he had been made very aware of the impact of the genocide that had taken place and he had been very moved by what he had seen.

 

He concluded that following on from the council motion it was important to understand the classifications of genocide and hate crime must not go unchallenged. He asked for Members support in the remembrance events and in learning lessons from the atrocities that had happened.

 

Members all spoke in support of the motion. They had hoped that genocide had been consigned to the history books after the second world war but clearly it was still happening 21 years ago and is still happening today. A Member suggested that Europeans were quick to remember but too slow to act and they must be able to take steps to stop these atrocities happening - mass graves were being discovered in Syria at this moment.  The ten steps to genocide were important and people should question themselves as to whether they may be taking the first step in terms of how they refer to people of different ethnicities. The media also had a part to play in how they reported hate crime and the Member challenged the local media to publish these 10 steps.  It was important that this history was taught in schools and should be remembered.

 

In seconding the motion, Councillor McCloskey saw this as an opportunity for people to make a commitment that they did not want this to happen again. It was not just about Members supporting the commemorative events but asking them to interact with their communities. He had personal experience of meeting refugees and hearing their personal accounts had been very moving.  He finished by referring to Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

 

He is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

In his summing up Councillor Hay thanked Members for their support. He agreed that the United Nations and Europe had let down these nations and their mandate was very much restricted. Genocide was still happening now and he was not seeing the international response he would have liked and politicians at a national level needed to understand the level of public feeling.

 

Upon a vote on the motion was carried unanimously.