Council meeting - 9th September

Last nights council meeting demonstrated many of the things that wrong with local democracy both nationally and in the London Borough of Barnet. The main part of the meeting consists of a debate on a number of motions put forward by Councillors. The agenda for the meeting lists these motions in the order they are submitted and states that they will be debated in that order. There are always more motions that there is time to debate them.

At the beginning of this section of the meeting the Tories always move that the order of business be changed so that they can take the motions they want to debate. The rest of the motions are voted on without any debate. The problem with this is that no prior notice is given of which motions they are intending to debate. The opposition parties have to be prepared to speak on all the motions in the knowledge that much of that preparation will be wasted as they won't get a chance to speak.

Last night the Tories threw a further spanner in the works by introducing an emergency motion on the closure of the A&E department at Chase Farm Hospital. There was absolutely no notice of this motion and they actually tried to start the debate before all members had even seen the motion. This might have been excusable if the motion had really been an emergency motion, but it was clear that all the speakers on the Tory side had pre-prepared speeches. This 'emergency' motion had been known about for several days.

The question that comes to my mind is what they gain by these antics. The full Council meeting is already a complete waste of time as all parties come to it with pre-prepared positions and so there is little chance of the debate (such as it is) having any real effect on the votes that are taken. Anyone watching last nights meeting would rightly be asking why the Council tax payer is forking out for this sort of idiocy.

Labour members walked out when the change in the order of business was announced. Whilst I share their frustrations all the walk-out did was to allow the Tories to cancel the mid-meeting break and steam through the rest of the meeting.

Whilst I was pleased to be able to congratulate Barnet's schools on their exam results and for our policy item on helping those facing the credit crunch to be passed with only minor amendments, it was deeply frustrating to be sitting through a meeting which could have been more productive had the administration been willing to stop playing silly games.