More ways to involve the public in council meetings will be developed as Brighton and Hove moves to a new way of working from next week.
Councillors are asked to adopt a new constitution at the annual council meeting due to take place at Brighton Town Hall on Thursday, 16 May.
The new constitution will see Brighton and Hove City Council move to a cabinet system, with ten councillors including the leader making the majority of the decisions.
Members are asked to note that public questions, deputations, and petitions will still take place during council, cabinet and committee meetings.
Recommendations for keeping the current engagement levels and give people new ways to work with the council followed a public consultation with 167 responses carried out in March and April.
A report to the annual council states several responders raised concerns there would be fewer opportunities to participate in council meetings.
People raised the importance of deputations – when six or more people up to five minutes to raise an issue with councillors and receive a response – which were not mentioned in the consultation.
The report said there was a call from a “notable number of respondents” to continue to allow direct public involvement in the decision-making process using the current methods.
At future cabinet, full council and overview and scrutiny committees 30 minutes will be given for public questions, 15 minutes for deputations and 15 minutes for petitions.
Those responding to the consultation requested multiple new methods to communicate with the council, including in-person meetings, online platforms and traditional mailings.
The report said: “Suggestions included using Zoom for remote participation, engaging with schools and youth councils and making events accessible to parents by allowing children to attend.
“There was equal support for each of the different proposed new engagement options of citizens assemblies, question time, digital engagement, in-person engagement and deliberative forums.
“Respondents wanted the council to consider the needs of people with disabilities more thoroughly, involve community representatives in the design process, and ensure that the local voluntary organisations with expertise are represented.
“Many respondents felt excluded due to a digital first approach, suggesting a reliance on digital platforms and social media can be exclusive and that the council’s website is often not user friendly.”
In response to the question asking what Brighton and Hove City Council can do to involve local people and reduce barriers to encourage people to be involved, 20.3 per cent of responders supported citizen assemblies, 19.2 per cent wanted to see question time, 18.1 per cent wanted digital engagement, 17.9 per cent supported in-person engagement and 16.8 per cent backed “deliberative forums”.
Further work will be carried out by the council’s policy, partnerships and scrutiny team to develop these new engagement opportunities.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s annual full council meeting is due to start at 4.30pm on Thursday 16 May at Brighton Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled for webcast on the council website.
They break our legs
And expect us to thank them
When they offer us crutches
Bring back the committees.
Yes!
They’ve barely started, to decry against a well-established paradigm in a substantial number of councils before the effects, either positive or negative, have occurred, is illogical.
Are we allowed to question Cllr Muten’s decision to roll out VG3? Why has he reneged on his promise to consult? Why has he cosied up to the cycling lobby / Sustrans and Bricycles?
Raise whatever questions you like, that’s the point!
I elect councillors to make decisions on my behalf, consulting with experts when necessary.
The last thing I want is the general public fiddling with the levers of power. A quick review of the majority of the comments on articles here and on The Argus should make it obvious why that is.
The problem with the cabinet system is that the majority of the councillors are effectively excluded from the decision-making process.
Only someone pulling the levers at the council would make a comment like this.
Someone who doesn’t want their city dictatorship plans interrupted.
Well strap in mate. If you’ve seen the anger around the city that I see every day, it’s gonna to be a bumpy ride.
And PS, Many Councillors are going to be locked out of the decision making process via the cabinet system so will NOT be able to represent their Wards as a result and will be almost as helpless as their electorate. As usual, no one has thought this through.
A logical fallacy is what you have come up with there, Barry. I find it quite hypocritical that you accuse others of not thinking it through, when one of the most common rebuttals you receive from myself and others is that you quite frequently make ill-informed comments.
In YOUR opinion Benjy boy.
I have my own opinion of YOUR comments.
I mean, we could specifically go through every time you’ve made factually incorrect comment, but I fear it wouldn’t be useful, and it’d be quite a long list, Barry.
I definitely relate to this.
Only a council cabinet member or one of their zealots would make such a comment.
Now let’s look at some worrying details.
No ‘public engagement’ time tabled at all for the next Full Council meeting om 16th May, and this is prior to deciding how they go forward with public participation. Fair enough they may not have had a full agenda of public items submitted yet, but you’d expect a time placeholder to be inserted, and so soon after Bella made a big song and dance about promising a whole 30 minutes for public engagement rather than 15.
And if the 30 minutes carries on, it sounds like there will be even more strictures for the council to decide which questions they take and from who than there are now. If a resident is not a proven, paid up Labour supporter, will they even get a look in?
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/g11220/Agenda%20frontsheet%2016th-May-2024%2016.30%20Council.pdf?T=0
Reading the new BHCC page on public engagement, BHCC openly admits they are scrapping ‘citizen space’ at meetings because THEY have decided it has become ‘outdated’, not the residents, who they claim to represent! In fact various residents have previously asked that half of council meeting time should be devoted to public engagement if BHCC are truly listening and representing us, not the insulting 15-30 minutes, now hanging in the balance.
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/news/2024/join-us-shaping-brighton-hoves-future
Nice attempt at flimflam offering to welcome non-voting and non-tax paying children while de-welcoming and de-platforming their parents and other adults, but it won’t wash. And wasn’t a Teams participation option already offered under the committee system? So now BHCC have discovered Zoom has been invented as well? Big deal.
It is deeply disturbing how BHCC keep re-writing the council ‘constitution’ and without any consultation or agreement with their electorate.
The point of a constitution is it is supposed to remain a reassuring constant and yardstick for the council to be measured against over the years. The clue is in the first five letters. The constant rewriting of the constitution is also seriously undermining to complaints against BHCC, which is presumably the whole reason Labour is obsessed with re-writing on a regular basis.
Agree with you Barry. The thing that is so galling for residents most of us work in jobs where we cant just sail off to the town hall or find somewhere quiet to go online (at 4pm or 4.30pm) because our boss won’t allow it. This didn’t matter so much when it was we were allowed to nominate someone else to read the question/deputation on our behalf but that seems to have been snatched away lately (especially if its a question Cllr Sankey does not like). Residents with childcare responsibilities in the late afternoon are hit hard too. In this respect if their kids were allowed to come along and sit quietly that actually would be an improvement.
Finally, for the love of god please will BHCC allow residents to ask their follow-up question in full before deciding its not a ‘relevant’ question (and in one case physically throwing them out!). A councillor asked that this basic respect be shown the public at Full Council in December but her question was ignored.
Please – no Citizen Assemblies if that means an unelected panel – if it means a new citizens forum where residents and groups get a chance to discuss important matters with councillors then yes.
I’m not too fond of deputations. Residents tend to filibuster good concerns with extremely poor articulation. This comes across as extremely rambly, and then usually the person gets upset that they get cut off for their aforementioned rambles. I’d rather residents write an initial question, supplement it with any evidence, and then given support to articulate their question concisely, or given via their Ward Councillors.
And just why should anyone care whether you like or dislike deputations, Benjy boy?
What are they to you?
The democratic process is not there to be liked or disliked, but respected and complied with.
Your filibustering comment is rich, considering that’s exactly what Councillors do to run down the public clock in their answers, some struggling even with basic sentence structure. Great political oratory it is not.
The last Full Council with our Mayor wasting the first 15 minutes wittering on about school prizes and various other trivial matters was a disgrace.
…I just explained why, seriously Barry, come on now.
She may as well have got out her shopping list and added that to her speech.