As a general rule each Council meeting starts with a public or open meeting and finishes with a closed session where aldermen discuss matters without the public present.

All the public is told about the closed session is at the end of the main agenda document. For each matter we are given a title like

“Exemption to enter into an agreement for the provision of commingled processing”

followed by a sentence starting with the words

“This item is to be considered at a closed meeting of the Council by authority of the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations 2015 Regulation 15(2)…”

which simply tells you which regulation(s) Council is using to justify discussing that matter without the public present.

In normal circumstances, that is all we will ever know about that agenda item, the information aldermen will consider and the decision they make, unless the decision is particularly newsworthy or casts Council in a positive light (when we receive the heavily filtered results of a media event).

The public has a right to know more about

• how Council justifies discussing a particular matter in closed session,
• the substance of the matter being discussed, and
• the results of that discussion, usually a motion passed (or rarely rejected).

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Let’s start with how a matter gets into the closed session. The General Manager has final responsibility for preparing the agenda, and must determine which items will appear in the closed session (presumably in close consultation with the Mayor). Local Government regulations provide Council with a list of permitted justifications that you can read here. But the regulation does not force Council to consider those matters in closed session; it says that Council may do so, not that it must!

In any case, the process for agenda production is entirely opaque and the bare references to regulations provides too little information to be useful.

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Next, the agenda provides so little information for each item that it is impossible for ratepayers and residents to exercise their democratic right to lobby aldermen.It is far too easy for Council to make a blanket judgement that every detail of an agenda item must not be made public.

The current policy of providing the public with only a bare bones agenda for a closed session is un-necessarily restrictive. There is a great deal that could be released to the public without creating any commercial advantage or disadvantage to entities party to the decisions. The current ad hoc approach ensures that the public learns nothing of controversial matter.

This document makes a case for including with each item those portions of the report considered by aldermen which do not breach any RTI, privacy or confidentiality issues. Aldermen will have their full agenda and reports. The public will have an agenda containing information they are permitted to read. Nothing in the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations prohibits that.

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Finally, why can’t the public routinely be provided information about the outcomes of the closed session?

This document makes a case for requesting Council to provide a report of each closed Council meeting as soon as practicable after the closed session ends. The Mayor has on occasion issued media releases or conducted media interviews immediately after a closed session. This seems to take place where a decision is regarded as newsworthy or casts a positive light on Council. Clearly, for some matters there is no need to wait for minutes to be confirmed before the decision can be announced. And for those matters, it appears to be no problem producing a summary. So why not every decision?

The “report” should contain at least a summary of decisions made.

If the motions were worded to exclude private or confidential information then the report could simply be the minutes. There is no reason why motions and the result of their votes cannot be shared provided private and confidential information is excluded.

For example, instead of

“Resolved to accept response of $52,000 from John Smith P/L for tender for footpath repairs in Howard Street (tender# 9999)”

write

“Resolved to accept response from John Smith P/L for tender for footpath repairs in Howard Street (tender# 9999) at terms indicated in report provided to meeting by Council”

or

“Resolved to accept response from John Smith P/L for tender for footpath repairs in Howard Street (tender# 9999) at terms indicated in meeting agenda”

The “report” must not take the form of a media release produced with a PR objective.

It will not for example exclude information that Council may find inconvenient to have in the public arena. It should only exclude what must be excluded for privacy or confidentiality.

Some agenda items contain a motion of the form “That the recommendations of the report be adopted”. The “report” should not simply mention the motion; that would provide no information whatsoever. It must provide some indication of the content of the recommendations.

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The Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations 2015 contain a regulation (no 34) which controls aspects of the minutes of closed meetings. Regulation 32 discusses minutes in general. Nothing in those regulations, or the Council’s own policy relating to Meeting Procedures, appears to limit the ability of the Mayor to produce media releases and conduct media interviews on Council decisions. The regulations and the policy treat privacy and confidentiality as sacrosanct as do I.

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The report could be produced by Council staff in the same way that meeting agendas are produced, a routine document that could be produced by any staff member given the rules for its compilation.

DPAC’s published guidelines state “During a closed meeting, the council decides whether discussions, reports or documents and outcomes relating to the closed meeting need to be kept confidential or can be made public.”

Transparency was a term often used in the early days of this Council. Legislation gives Council a great deal of discretion in the management of closed sessions. Providing the public with more information about (a) allocation of items to closed session, (b) the substance of each agenda item, and (c) a summary of the outcomes of closed meetings, would be a step in the right direction.

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References

Here are a few items you might like to read.

A short item from Lindsay Taylor Lawyers “Easier Access To Agendas And Minutes Of Closed Part Of Council Meetings”

Calgary City Council (Canada) – “City staff make recommendations to improve transparency surrounding closed-door council meetings”.

City of Guelph (Canada) Closed Meeting Protocol.