A little piece of history took place at the Annual Full Council meeting on Wednesday evening.
For (what we think is) the first time since the ruling party came into power in 2005, a motion proposed by an opposition councillor was passed.
Independent councillor, Ian Stephens, spoke on the frequency of council meetings (separate report to follow) and raised the issue of the start time for the budget meeting that takes place in February each year.
Readers may remember that this year’s budget meeting, which started at 6pm, continued well past 11pm.
Can’t think clearly that late
Cllr Stephens suggested that the start time be changed to much earlier during the day to ensure considered debate.
Cllr Richards argued that after a full day’s work and then being in a meeting considering serious issues late at night, no-one in the chamber could claim to be able to think clearly by 11pm.
As it was only once a year, Cllr Knowles suggested that the budget meeting should start at either 10am or 2pm, providing a full day for debating the proposed budgets, whilst everyone was alert and able to give the serious matter of council expenditure their full attention.
Cllr Fuller stressed that councillors owed it to their constituents to start the budget debate earlier and debate in the right way.
A good idea?
New chairman of the council (more to come on that too), Cllr David Williams, replied that there were some good points coming through from the floor.
Cllr Pugh, who was sitting on his right turned away and shaking his head, said to one side of the chamber “No there’s not!”
Cllr Julie Jones-Evans spoke next, saying that as she was a working single mother, she couldn’t support the amendment to start the meeting earlier. In direct response to this, Cllr Barry said that she received an allowance for being a councillor and why couldn’t she make different arrangements for one day a year.
Amendment to start time proposed
After further discussion, Cllr Stephens, proposed an amendment to the start time from 6pm to 3pm.
Cllr Pugh reminded the chamber that when the Conservatives became the ruling party, there was a huge emphasis on evening meetings being fairer for working members and that he wouldn’t want to see meeting start earlier.
He went on to say that it was unfair to seek to move such an important meeting to an earlier time, adding “I’m quite alive at 11pm.” Given the average age of councillors is probably beyond retirement age, we’re not sure others would be quite as sprightly at 11pm.
Why not same start time as Scrutiny meetings?
Cllr Lumley was next to speak, suggesting that as Scrutiny meetings currently took place successfully at 5pm, could the amendment look at starting the budget meetings at the same time.
This was accepted by Cllr Stephens and members voted to start the annual budget meeting at 5pm instead of 6pm.
Twenty members voted in favour of the start time for the February budget meeting and 12 voted against.
Image: Alan Cleaver_2000 under CC BY 2.0
