The council’s new cabinet has been accused of leaving opposition councillors in the dark and preventing them from being able to properly represent voters and taxpayers.
One long-serving councillor said that the set up was absurd and outrageous and akin to a dictatorship, with opposition councillors given too little time to consider reports.
There was an artificial cap on the number of questions that councillors could ask at monthly cabinet meetings and other limitations to prevent the proper scrutiny of decision-making on behalf of residents.
A councillor from another opposition party said: “There is no detail. I don’t see how this is increasing transparency and it actively hinders accountability.”
Her comments reflected the law governing council cabinets which says that the “objective … is to deliver greater efficiency, transparency and accountability”.
Brighton and Hove City Council voted to scrap its policy-making committees at the annual council meeting last month and to replace them with a 10-strong cabinet to take most key decisions.
At Brighton Town Hall, the Labour council leader Bella Sankey said that the changes would enhance public engagement, streamline council decision-making and bring more openness, accountability and effective overview and scrutiny.
Labour has a majority on the council, with 38 of the 54 seats, so the change went through despite objections from the opposition Greens and Conservatives.
The latest criticisms follow publication of the first “forward plan” which sets out the key decisions to be taken at the first meeting of the new cabinet in just over a fortnight.
Opposition councillors were shocked and disappointed by the lack of information about the dozen key decisions due to be taken.
The decisions could commit the council to spending more than £100 million, affecting homes, jobs and the education of vulnerable children.
And while more information is due to be released later next week, there are concerns that it will be too little too late.
Until Labour took over at the local elections in May last year, the leading opposition councillors on each policy committee were offered briefings about a week before the publication of agenda papers.
They would also receive draft copies of each committee’s agenda and reports, giving them enough time and information to ask relevant questions, in keeping with the constitutional importance of opposition in British democracy and politics.
Under the new arrangements, opposition councillors – many of whom have full-time jobs – will have about 48 hours or less to read reports and then draft and submit questions.
They will be limited to two questions each and, unlike previously, they will not be allowed to ask supplementary questions.
And FULL reports will be published a week before – just like the committee system.
The plan is a guide to what decisions will be taken not the full papers. We never had thst under the old system,
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/l1086/Printed%20plan%20Edition%201.pdf?T=4&CT=2
In other words, Labour hasn’t even had a fair full council referendum on this, never mind a public one for their electorate.
Is it true the public can only submit questions related to meeting item agendas which don’t get published until around 24 hours before the window for public questions closes?
Let’s regard all decisions by the cabinet system as legally unsafe until they go back to the drawing board and re-consult properly.
Barry I look forward to you taking a cabinet decsion to court
But you won’t.
You keep saying things like ‘sue the council’ over all sorts of things – council tax, red routes, parking bays, planning and this yet you never actually do anything do you?
Cabinets in local government are perfectly legal. Almost all councils operate that way. No need to have a referendum to implement them.
Why was the cabinet system missing from Labour’s manifesto in May 2023? Labour received votes under false pretences if Labour misled voters who would never have voted for a Cabinet system if they had known.
But now Caplin has fallen who parachuted in the Leicester Ladies and others who had no right to be installed into the council, legal action may be overtaken as this house of cards appears to have started falling down all by itself. So carry on believing you have a right to run a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Carry on ramping up the local Labour arrogance until it all implodes, please.
It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it. Labour’s decision to govern by cabinet rather than committee was unheralded, even though it’s such a fundamental change. To add insult to injury, they now appear further intent on sidelining the opposition. Undemocratic decisions have a way of coming back to bite those who took them. Call it karma or poetic justice, but Labour would do well to think again about excluding so many of our representatives from making decisions on our behalf. It does have an unpleasant whiff of authoritarianism about it.
In fairness, I think there is a huge crisis that needs fixing from the last shower of morons that requires unusual measures. It looks to me as if B&H services are teetering on the edge and desperate measures are being taken. I personally will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
Dodgy Blairite power grab. Be very afraid when they win the general election
They think it is in the bag – I am not so sure.
Animal Farm meets Lord of the Flies