Labour, Lib Dems and Tories work together to block democracy
Under the pretence of a “clarification” to Burnley Council’s constitution, an undemocratic power grab is underway….
Burnley council has a “Cabinet” model of making decisions. This means that one leader is selected by a vote of all of the elected Councillors and then that Leader hand picks others to join them on their “Executive” – these other “Executive Members” are not voted for by the other elected councillors. Once the Executive Members are in post, all decisions on a particular topic, like parks, are handled by that individual Executive Member.
The only time decisions are made by a group (committee) is when they have to be under the law. Committees must in this instance be politically balanced, again by the law. This is the case with planning decisions. The Greens believe that in the spirit of openness, transparency and democracy that all the decisions should be made in a politically balanced way, rather than by just one councillor on an Executive. This is how many other Councils are run and indeed it is how Burnley has operated in the past.
Research shows that where different views are included in decision making, it is better value for money for taxpayers.
That is why the Greens have pushed for a governance review to ensure Burnley Council is more open, transparent and democratic and that it is better value for money for taxpayers. Many councils, like nearby Pendle, already do this. Labour in particular are completely opposed to making the council more democratic in this way. It seems that their motivation is to avoid discussions in long meetings – they want to get home and put their feet up!
And it could be about to get worse…
At a recent meeting, the leaders of the Labour Group, the Conservative Group and the Liberal Democrat Group have joined together to say that the majority of councillors should be completely shut out of making decisions. If they have their way, all that a Full Council will be allowed to do is make recommendations to the Executive. There would be no voting on motions, the recommendations would go to the unelected Executive Member, who would then do whatever they wanted, presumably burying anything they personally disagreed with.
Whichever way a Council is usually run, a majority of elected councillors are usually able to make decisions too. This is done at “Full Council” where all the elected councillors attend to vote on business. Full Council is where other parties can table motions to be voted on. As democrats, the Greens do not think it should be controversial, if a majority of elected councillors want to decide something a certain way, that the Executive have to act on that majority vote even if they would ordinarily have done it differently on their own.
Leader of the Green Group on Burnley Council, Andy Fewings, said:
“This is a departure from how motions have been dealt with in the last couple of years and it’s a huge and undemocratic power grab. Residents should be worried that this coalition of chaos between Labour, Lib Dems and the Conservatives are trying to limit the influence that residents can have on decisions. I am shocked that these Councillors are taking this approach and trying to simply circumvent democracy whenever it suits them”.