At last night’s full council meeting, the last before the local elections, two members of the public were prevented from asking questions of the council.
Members of the public have 15 minutes at the beginning of the meeting to ask questions of the leader or Cabinet members. Readers will remember that rules on public question time were changed in May 2012, forcing members of the public to register before the meeting to speak.
Written questions first
Written questions had been submitted for last night’s meeting by Dave Miller and Adrian Nicholas. As is the procedure, those members of the public were invited to speak first.
Both questions received fairly long answers from council leader David Pugh, meaning that almost 15 minutes allocated for public questions was taken up.
No time for more questions?
Despite there still being at least two and half minutes left of public question time (we checked the timings against our recording of the meeting), chairman, Cllr Susan Scoccia advised that two other members of the public who had registered to ask questions at the meeting would have to send their questions to the leader by email instead.
It was pointed out that the council have the discretion to extend the time allowed for public questions, but Cllr Scoccia argued that there was a long agenda.
The meeting was nowhere near being one of the longest on record, finishing at a very healthy 8.15pm.
Democracy in action?
Later in the meeting, Cllr Gary Taylor asked whether democracy existed within the council.
Cllr Pugh said that democracy was alive and well on the Island and was a policy of the Isle of Wight council.
