Concerns have been raised that a public consultation into how people can play a role in Brighton and Hove City Council decision-making does not include the current option of a deputation.
The survey – Join Us in Shaping Brighton and Hove’s Future – on the Your Voice section of the council’s website said that – as well as deputations – people could currently also ask questions and present petitions to full council and committee meetings.
But according to the survey, the options – should the council move to a cabinet system – would be to ask questions at full council, cabinet and overview and scrutiny committees and present petitions to the full council.
Despite not including deputations in the consultation, the council said that it would continue to offer people this option.
Deputations give groups of six or more people up to five minutes to raise an issue with councillors and to receive a response.
Questions are limited to 100 words and a petition requires 1,250 signatures for a debate although organisers all have an allotted time to present even the smallest petitions to the council and relevant committee.
At the last meeting of the full council in February, people living in The Ridgeway, Woodingdean, called for action because their homes had flooded 10 times in 14 months.
And recent deputations have included parents wanting safer streets near schools and residents asking for railings to be put back in Upper Abbey Road, near the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Another deputation objected to the closure of Mile Oak Library.
In the past four months, deputations of parents at Bright Start Nursery and St Bartholomew’s Primary School, in Brighton, and St Peter’s Primary School, in Portslade, have spoken up for existing facilities.
Bright Start parent Ed Armston-Sheret said: “Deputations allow people to put forward an alternative argument and raise more substantive points than are possible in a question. I’d be really concerned if they were scrapped.
“I presented a deputation about cuts to Bright Start Nursery and this was the only point during the process where I felt like councillors actually sat and listened to the points parents and carers were making.”
Emily Brewer, who campaigned to keep St Peter’s open, said: “Deputations are a vital part of debate between the public and the council.
“It provides a platform for local communities to be heard in a way that is more detailed than just asking topline questions which aren’t always fit for purpose.
“As someone who has taken part in deputations due to my daughter’s nursery and school closure, I find it shocking that they are not included as this limits how debate between the public and the council would be steered.”
Brighton Access for Disabled Groups Everywhere (BADGE) founder Pippa Hodge has led deputations in the past five years on special educational needs and blue badge parking to highlight issues that councillors might not otherwise know about.
She said: “A well-written deputation and speech encourages advance reflection by councillors. It encourages them to reconsider proposals in light of new information and perspectives that may be outside of their own lived experience.
“From an equalities perspective, a deputation can explain in more detail the concerns and potential impact – or highlight an important ‘levelling up’ opportunity – and give essential background context, such as government guidance or best practice, which can be educational and ensure that councillors are making robust and fair decisions from a position of greater understanding and awareness.
“We can’t expect councillors to be experts in all areas but they make big decisions that impact people’s lives for better or worse.”
Conservative group leader councillor Alistair McNair said that it was worrying that deputations were not included in the consultation.
He said that, when he advised residents on how to present their case to the full council, most were aware of petitions and questions but few were aware of deputations.
Councillor McNair said: “Often the situation is so grave there is no time for a petition. Often the situation is so complex that a simple question will not do.
“Is this the Labour administration trying to reduce the means by which residents can make their voices heard? Let’s hope not.
“But the consultation needs to be updated. All current methods of reaching the administration must be maintained.”
Green group convenor councillor Steve Davis was concerned about a “top-down cabinet” where decisions would not be made and debated in real time but instead the public voice would be silenced.
Councillor Davis said: “I’ve lost count of the number of deputations that have changed minds on the council – whether that’s calling on the council to declare a climate emergency to tackling racism, preventing flooding in local streets, saving domestic violence funding, stopping the release of sky lanterns.
“Deputations allow people to go into important detail about what they need and have made a real difference.
“Labour has no mandate to scrap the city’s democratic decision-making process. Labour say they want to increase public involvement.
“In reality, their hasty plan to introduce a cabinet system that shuts down challenge looks set to see public involvement in council reduced to, at its worst, a series of council-run ‘talking shops’.
“These sudden, rushed changes only betray Labour’s plan to run the council ‘their way’, with little scrutiny. Now more than ever they must be held to account.”
The council said: “We have no intention of ending deputations.
“We launched the consultation as we’d like to hear other ways in which we can involve the public, in addition to deputations, public questions and the presentation of petitions.
“We’ll consider all responses to the consultation before finalising our public engagement plans.”
The Your Voice public consultation is open until Sunday 21 April on the council website.
A meeting of full council is due to vote on moving from the current committee system to a cabinet system instead.
The meeting is due to start at 4.30pm on Thursday (28 March) at Hove Town Hall and is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
It’s blindingly obvious that the entire reason for a closed cabinet council is to shut the public out. Spending £80,000 of our money on doing so is the ultimate insult. It also fits with the pattern of closing council offices, stopping face to face monthly Councillor surgeries for many councillors and putting more and more layers between them and us and between them and accountability.
There is no legal requirement for a councillor (or an MP for that matter) to hold a surgery,
And who can blame them not holding them in favour of phone and emails when threats of and actual physical violence are a serious risk these days.
Some of the things I have seen been written and spoken to the Ward Councillors over the phone has been utterly vile. There are enough people doing it that it is not insignificant.
Shows a real lack of decorum and basic respect towards another human.
Councillor candidates are not scared when they come knocking on our doors soliciting our votes. And if they served us as they should once elected, they would have no reason to become scaredy cats when it comes to holding monthly surgeries. Public anger against them is wholly preventable. Serve your public and not yourselves and be accountable. It’s that simple.
Yeah that’s all nice and well but when people send you death threats because you approve a scheme they didn’t like, it’s not really acceptable is it…
Serving the public doesn’t justify people harassing or being bullies, Barry. And I’m sure you aren’t suggesting that, are you?
TBF with a majority like that Labour can do as they please and really do not have to listen to anyone, (Valley Gardens Phase 3 anyone?). But is it better with a committee system? I see in this weeks transport meeting we have ex councilor Elaine Hills asking Labour why they do not reconsider the LTN in Hanover? See Greens don’t listen either even when the local election results in Hanover give them a clear answer. In recent years I can think of very few decisions overturned once the administration has proposed something. Home to school Transport, OSR Cycle lane are two of the few and that was down to neither a committee or cabinet but overwhelming public pressure and the press.
I always respect the work of journalism, it is an important check in politics, and has a great deal of influence in how the public perceive a whole phantasmagoria of stories.
Former Green HEG Councillor Elaine Hills is not doing herself any favours if she is now standing as a Green MP candidate for Pavilion. A track record of not listening to her electorate as a Councillor and continuing to push her anti-citizen agenda on them beyond office, is not going to impress any voters.
Sian Berry is the Green candidate for MP in Pavilion in the coming General Election.
Why doesn’t Barry Johnson exert himself from his sofa and, after that struggle, tap a few fingertips to ascertain that Elaine Hills is not a contender for Pavilion MP? The readers’ comments/vomits here are going the way of those over at the Argus.
The comments here and on the Argus are all the evidence I need that councillors should be moving away from public consultation. It seems like all the normal people are too busy getting by to engage with politics and the only people left to attend (and get slung out of) the Town Hall are “eccentric” activists with appalling opinions.
Ah, there are a few good eggs in there to be fair though! They most likely don’t spend a lot of time on here, and spend more of it getting stuff done and supporting their communities. Those are the kind of people we should be praising.
I see a worrying drift towards authoritarianism in this country, along with a gradual erosion of rights. It would seem that the only moment when politicians and councillors really seem to engage is when canvassing your vote. And even then it it now seems quite “normal” to change direction once elected. I find it very difficult to understand the true position of anyone standing, and therefore find it harder and harder to vote.
My family were once Labour all the way. Now we agree we are all politically homeless.
If only that were the case, we might get some infrastructure built, on budget and on time.
My experience has been varied. I think there are varying levels of engagement with councillors, and not all councillors are equal in quality because sometimes the pick for a ward is simply the best of a bad bunch. Personally, I like to judge a person by their actions before, the lead-up immediately to an election, I quite agree with you Chris, is very “photoshopped”. What they have done before that, when elections were perhaps not on the table, is maybe more telling of a person’s character?
Voting is hard. Especially when you’re wanting to put a lot of thought into it and make a careful and informed choice.
There are few instances where the council listens to the questions or deputations residents bring to the chamber. But the replies can be very telling. As such democratic scrutiny is served. Recently though, with a resident physically ejected mid question and shameful actions against women at ‘Reimagine B&H’ public consultation event on women’s safety, the Labour administration’s efforts to widen public engagement are revealed as a sham.
Quite a significant omission in that retelling. You make it sound like they didn’t do anything wrong during that meeting.
Blairite power grab
The leader and cabinet model is common in a local Government across the lane.
Tory controlled councils also use it. Is that a “Blairite power grab’?
Very similar, yes.
Now that they’ve created a one-party state, they won’t be able to blame anyone else for their failures except themselves.
Yes, clear accountability. A good thing.