In-fighting over city council secrecy

14 Jul 11 @ 06:00am by Alice Higgins

Some city councillors have accused their colleagues and staff of lacking transparency and gagging debate on contentious issues. The councillors say many items are being discussed behind “a veil of secrecy” to avoid public and media scrutiny. The group says staff are recommending many agenda items be considered in camera, and say some of their fellow councillors are being too compliant in allowing the matters to be discussed in secret.

Discussions can only be held behind closed doors after a majority vote of the council.

Matters debated in camera over the past three months include the $535 million Adelaide Oval redevelopment, Rundle Mall Master Plan and the State Government’s proposed three-hour lockout at city pubs and clubs.

Deputy Lord Mayor David Plumridge last month told a council meeting it could not “continue to work behind a veil of secrecy”. “Many times I think we go behind the veil of confidence when we should be out in the open,” Cr Plumridge, a former national president of the Local Government Association, told the City Messenger after  the meeting.

“When we are dealing with public money, public assets and public infrastructure, I think the public has a right to know what we are discussing.”

Under the Local Government Act, councils can discuss matters in camera under a range of scenarios, such as if they compromise council security, reveal a person’s personal affairs, or relate to legal advice.

Cr Anne Moran said there was a “level of frustration” among some councillors that matters were only being discussed in the open when it was “a done deal”. Cr Moran unsuccessfully appealed for a Rundle Mall Management Authority presentation to be held in public at a meeting last week, saying “after all, the public is paying for (the plan)”. “(Staff’s) general default position is when vaguely possible, pop everything into confidence,” Cr Moran said.

“The reasons to go into confidence are becoming more and more flimsy. “It is just so we can debate it without having to read about it in the paper.”

Cr Sandy Wilkinson said secret discussions were being used to silence councillors. “It is a way of gagging elected members speaking their views on things because they are bound by confidentiality not to say anything,” Cr Wilkinson said. “I think it is important for people to hear the conflicting and opposing views and the arguments that are put for those conflicting view.”

Cr Mark Hamilton told last month’s meeting the council had “a tendency to deal with miles too much in confidence”. “There are a number of occasions … after the matter has been dealt with in confidence, I have felt there has been no need for the matter to have been dealt with in confidence,” Cr Hamilton said after the meeting.

Cr Houssam Abiad denied the council went into confidence too often but said the public should be kept informed as much as possible. “If we are discussing things in confidence, we should be sending out a public brief saying this is roughly what happened yesterday that we can tell you so the public feels engaged and connected,” Cr Abiad said.

Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood said it was “logical” for staff to “err on the side of caution”. “Adelaide City Council is in a unique position compared to other councils given the large number of contracts and businesses we are involved in,” Mr Yarwood said. “We are often competing with private enterprise or putting out tenders for projects and sometimes we need to do things in confidence to ensure we are getting the best bang for our buck when spending ratepayers’ money.”

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The above sounds terribly familiar – apart from the fact that in Glen Eira, control of the agenda has been handed over holus bolus to the CEO alone. He has the power to declare any item “confidential”. We’ve previously featured some figures on Glen Eira and the secret society – ie. how many items have been conducted in camera. We’ve now gone a step further and reviewed the entire year’s council meeting minutes and displayed them as follows: (1) the number of ‘normal’ agenda items; (2) the number in camera, and (3) the number of outcomes declared on these in camera items. The results are pretty amazing – nearly half of all agenda items were discussed in secret and of these less than one third was subsequently released. Please note that of the items disclosed most concerned straight forward tenders.

Date

 Agenda   Items In Camera

Announced
22nd   November

10

 8

5
8th   Nov. (spec. comm..)

3

 3

0
2nd   November

8

 8

3
25th   Oct (spec. comm.)

1

 1

0
4th   Oct (spec comm.)

1

 1 0

11th   October

10

 2

2
20th   September

14

 6

3
20th   August

14

 13

3
29th   August (Spec.comm –racecourse)

1

0

0
9th   August

8

 6

1

19th   July

 16 8

4
28th   June

20

 6

4
14 June   (Special

1

 0

0
6th   June

15

 1(urgent   business)

1
17th   May

11

 4

1
10th   May (Special)

1

 0

0
28th   April (racecourse)

1

 0

0
27th   April

12

 6

4
5th   April

13

 5

2
4th   April (spec. comm. – racecourse)

1

 0

0
15th   March

10

 2

1
22nd   Feb

10

 6

1
1st   feb

11

 3

0
TOTAL

192

 89

35