A woman with an interest in local government matters has urged Brighton and Hove City Council to change the deadlines for public questions.
Alison Woolfenden said that the council’s constitution required public questions to be submitted two days before the meeting papers were published, requiring people to “resort to guesswork”.
She said: “It risks excluding residents, those who want to read reports, understand proposals or who aren’t familiar with council procedures.
“A system that only works for insiders isn’t an inclusive one.”
Ms Woolfenden said that the council had changed its policy for scrutiny committees last October but not for meetings of the full council.
Council leader Bella Sankey said that there were several ways that the public could engage with committees.
At full council meetings, the public could ask questions on any subject and present petitions and send deputations.
Councillor Sankey said that longer deadlines were needed to manage the large number of representations.
She said: “I do support your request to review these deadlines to allow for questions to be raised on reports on the agenda for full council.
“I therefore asked officers to bring forward proposals to enable this adjustment.”
Councillor Sankey said that a report on the proposed changes should be considered at the council meeting scheduled in July.
So a report on the proposed changes in July, then if agreed several months to implement, so in reality even if there is a process change, it will come 3 and a half years into this Labour administration’s 4 year term. They were quick to change the systems in 2023 which made them less accountable to residents and made it harder for public scrutiny of their decisions.
It’s also only a very minor concession on more time to submit questions, I can’t see Bella saying anything on allowing more resident questions in the first place or more deputations. Until that happens it is just tokenism.
Devolution is an interesting space for this topic I think, because how community engages with the mayoralty hasn’t been set out yet, and that’s where a lot of key questions will be.
And there’s nothing wrong with councillors answering questions outside of deputations. Most of them have drop in surgeries to do that.
The whole cabinet system has been imposed (at public expense on every level) to create an autocratic regime rather than a democratic and lawful council. Not only have residents been outcast so have many elected Councillors who are not part of Sankey’s inner sanctum, leaving them unable to meaningfully and properly represent their wards. If you complain, the Head of Legal Services is also the Monitoring Officer, so a nice closed loop to ensure your Councillor complaints etc never go anywhere. New balls please.
Spot on Tracy. Shocking really shocking!
Listening council my arse a gatekeeping council. But I do welcome the announcement of a further £9m in funding for the temporary accomodation crisis. Good to hear that.
‘A woman with an interest in local government matters’ is a curious way to describe what should be an everyday interest for all of us. We pay these people money for goodness sake. They work for us. We have every right to demand accountability and know how every penny of our money is being spent. ‘An interest in local government matters’ should be taught in schools. Schools should have sixth form trips to council meetings.
I actually agree that we should do more to engage young people into politics and local government.
Hi James – the “woman with an interest in local government matters” is me! I was asked by Sarah (who wrote the article) how I would like to be described – I wasn’t quite sure how to describe myself (in this particular scenario) if I am being brutally honest!.
I do agree that it would be good for children to be taught more about non academic, but life skills type issues (household money and finance, voting and government, everyday cooking being three such examples) in school.
It is quite shocking how little many people know about local issues and local government and responsibilities. Examples would be how many people refer to “the green council” when not recognising that it was a minority green council pre May 2023 (so votes had to be carried with support of more than one party such as the i360). There’s the suggestion that local elections for 2026 have been cancelled (they haven’t – they always were due to take place in May 2027 – elections in East and West Sussex were originally postponed, but Brighton and Hove is a different council, so it doesn’t impact those who live in the city in the way its being suggested). Another favourite myth is that Caroline Lucas was on Brighton council (she wasn’t; she was an MP for Brighton Pavilion at Westminster until 2024). Then you often read that council tax is going up whilst getting less (that’s due to a massive reduction in central government funding to councils since 2010 – I think its over £120M in real terms now) – the only way to remedy this is either a) central government increases dramatically the grant or b) higher business rates or c) higher council tax – that requires a local referendum if the increase is over 4.99%. It was a deflection to shift “blame” to local authorities from central government 16 years ago, given the ideology was to shrink the role of the state.
I have also read of people blaming local authorities for the housing crisis (eg not replacing homes sold off under the “right to buy”), not understanding the way in which the legislation was written by central government – initially only 20% of monies could be used by local authorities, then later 75% had to be set aside to repay debt. So central government benefitted from monies raised and local authorities were the big losers. This was entirely deliberate – make no mistake – to shift from social housing to private ownership and renting.
Then we have huge numbers completely mislead by certain political parties over housing for asylum seekers, cashing in on an incredibly racist narrative and the lack of familiarity of their voters on how the system actually works. Whilst those who have claimed asylum (which is not illegal) might well be living locally within the city, this is not a responsibility of the local authority. Providing housing for asylum seekers falls to the home office which is then undertaken in conjunction with private companies. In order to present as homeless and be provided with housing via the council, someone has to meet three key tests on the day they present – one of these being eligibility (based on immigration status). Someone who is an asylum seeker would NOT be eligible. Ditto, the council housing register – neither an asylum seeker, nor someone who was illegally in the country (eg came in via a now expired student visa) would be eligible. Only a refugee is – and they often wait several years to get a definite decision. I am aware that recently the council have considered getting extra monies from central government via a pilot scheme, in order to offer housing to asylum seekers – however what is not being made clear by these parties is that this is EXTRA funding, so would not impact those on the housing register, and furthermore, after 10 years, that accommodation can be used by the local council for those they are seeking to house eg via home move – in effect the council is acquiring extra stock to use for their housing register (and remember the law on who can apply for temporary/homeless accommodation and long term accommodation)…. If I had a pound for every person who didn’t understand all of the above points, I would be pretty rich by now!
The constitutional review happens every year, so this is again spin.
The article headline should read council leader agrees she fuc#ked up. But action is not being taken. I have an ombudsman complaint in specifically for deputations. So I hope on this annual constitution review they will go back to the reasonable adjustments requested 48 hour rule labour brought in and under Sankey abolished.
I appreciate the climb down, but for a year or so residents have raise the engagement issues and nothing was done, this is another spin for those who watch council matters closely.
The council could have brought this months ago, they didn’t. The wanted no engagement.
There is an election next year so they will relax the rules especially with ombudsman involved now.
But for me it’s too little too late
Labour out!