Tag: waste
Mini Sit-in at Call-in
Last night the committee with a very long name about which I have blogged previously met again, this time to consider a Call-In Request. It met to decide whether or not to call-in the decision made by Deputy Leader Councillor Matthew Lee (CONSERVATIVE) to make Viridor the preferred bidder to run the council’s planned incinerator (Lot 1).
The members of this committee are:
- Councillor Marion Todd (Chairman)
- Councillor Graham Casey (Vice Chairman)
- Councillor Mohammed Nadeem
- Councillor Yasmeen Maqbool
- Councillor Stuart Martin
- Councillor Nick Thulbourn
- Councillor Judy Fox
- Councillor Dale McKean (Reserve)
- Councillor Lisa Forbes (Reserve)
- Councillor Chris Ash (Reserve) (source: Peterborough City Council)
Cllr Maqbool had given advance notice of her absence and Cllr Dale McKean attended in her place.
At the end of about four hours of lengthy, soporific, off topic but occasionally revelatory proceedings the committee decided 4 to 3 to reject the request for a call-in.
Voted AGAINST calling in the decision (and therefore supporting Cllr Lee’s decision)
Councillor Marion Todd (Chairman) CONSERVATIVE
Councillor Graham Casey (Vice Chairman) CONSERVATIVE
Councillor Mohammed Nadeem CONSERVATIVE
Councillor Dale McKean (Reserve) CONSERVATIVE
Voted FOR calling in the decision (and supporting reference back to Full Council or decision maker, but unable to vote for either option since the other vote took place first)
Councillor Stuart Martin LABOUR
Councillor Nick Thulbourn LABOUR
Councillor Judy Fox INDEPENDENT
The meeting began at 6pm with Apologies and Declaration of Interests. No declarations of interest were made.
The Committee voted once again without any discussion whatsoever and without reference to any submission to it to maintain the exemption of key documents.
I could not identify who voted which way nor, without a discussion, why.
The meeting has already been covered elsewhere by the Peterborough Evening Telegraph and Park Farm Neighbourhood News This morning it was discussed on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
At nine o’clock the Chair was persuaded to move to a comfort break followed by a short public session for sharing the “milestones”, (possible timescale for implementation of the decision) followed by the exempt session.
This time excluded members of public and press were invited to use the Forli Room and make themselves a drink. We were also invited back for the non exempt conclusion of the meeting, so there was an opportunity to observe the vote and further non exempt discussion.
When the committee announced its readiness to go into exempt session some members of the public decided to stay seated. This would be a protest at the absence of any public interest debate.
The Chair invited the beadles to try to throw us out and a beadle was fetched and duly and politely invited us to leave. (This has happened before to a couple of us at a Planning Meeting, but on that occasion a beadle couldn’t be found.)
We responded by asking the Chair to follow standing orders and invite a debate on whether or not the public interest might actually lie in sharing the information which is currently hidden and described as exempt. She cheerfully agreed to this request and invited just such a debate.
No member of the scrutiny committee spoke in favour of disclosure or why it might be in the public interest to disclose exempt information (please correct me if I missed something). In fact I can’t remember anything any of the committee members said. I do remember three legal arguments being presented by the council’s lawyer. No committee member countered these or put up alternative or competing views.
Councillor Lee‘s contribution to these proceedings was to protest his willingness to go out of his way to share more than he was legally obliged to in advance of the moment when he was legally obliged to share it, but he would seriously consider never doing this again if this was the kind of reception his helpfulness got.
Cllr Nick Sandford (LIBERAL DEMOCRAT) who was present and sitting alongside members of the committee by virtue of his position as a political group leader did speak out at this point (and at many other moments) in favour of publication, openness and (a new point) fairness (by then quite a few nuggets of exempt information had been dropped into the public domain by the pro-incinerator team which appeared to be free from the obligation placed on councillors to maintain secrecy).
The Chair seemed to me slightly less hasty to stop people talking than she has been at previous meetings. Slightly less grim. And all Tories present seemed entirely confident of the outcome of the meeting. She didn’t rush to silence so many contributions this time. With the notable exception of Councillor Nazim Khan (LABOUR), who sat alongside the committee (by virtue of his position as a political group leader). He was prevented from speaking twice, I think. I am not sure why, except that on one occasion I surmised that it might have been to allow the committee members to speak first. But that is another blog.
Scrutiny committee doesn’t ask if disclosure could be in the public interest
A meeting of a committee with a very long name: Sustainable Growth and Environment Capital Scrutiny Committee held on Wednesday 13th June, 2012 at 7.00 pm Bourges Viersen Room, Town Hall. may turn out to be the last committee able to interrogate or discuss Peterborough City Council’s plans to build an incinerator, a so-called “Energy from Waste (EfW) plant” before an executive decision is taken by the deputy leader in consultation with the Waste 2020 Project Board (whose recommendations and minutes I believe are not published – please put a link in a comment if you find them!). If this committee does not “call-in” the decision the council is expected to proceed with incineration plans which still can’t be examined by the public.
Documents showing council’s current thinking and a brief history of its proposal for an EfW plant has been circulated to councillors. These documents reveal that fears which have often been expressed about the city’s recycling (how it does it and how much it does) and even bigger worries about incineration replacing recycling could well be justified.
The EfW plant was discussed at ITEM 5. Waste 2020 Programme- Energy from Waste Facility And Other Associated Works and Services Part of the discussion was to be “exempt”. The agenda item reads as follows, although the highlighting is mine:
“In accordance with Standing Orders, Members are asked to determine whether the update report to be tabled at the meeting relating to agenda item 5. Waste 2020 Programme – Energy From Waste Facility which contains exempt appendices containing information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person (including the authority holding that information), as defined by Paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of Part 1 of the Local Government Act 1972, should be exempt and the press and public excluded from the meeting when these appendices are discussed or whether the public interest in disclosing this information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption.”
I asked from the public seating area that members be given the opportunity to vote on excluding members of the public because the chair seemed to be telling us to leave at the outset of ITEM 5 and without any vote. They were then allowed to vote. The chair also had to be persuaded by council officers that part of ITEM 5 could be discussed in public and that the exclusion could follow discussion of that part rather than apply to the whole item.
However no discussion took place in this committee on the relative merits of the “public interest in disclosing” as opposed to the “public interest in maintaining the exemption” and it was not clear to me that members of the committee understood that standing orders provided them with an opportunity to debate the relative pros and cons of sharing the information with the public. The chair of the committee refused to let me raise this.
The public interest in disclosing is overwhelming in my view. I believe that this committee was led by its chair into a breach of its own standing orders by not having any debate about where the balance of public interest lay: whether it was better for the city to have disclosure or not. Members of the committee were simply not asked to contribute their thoughts on the subject or debate it before they were asked to vote.
For some members of the newly formed opposition (Independent/Labour) this was their first time sitting on this committee. I don’t know how they felt but I was in a state of mild shock by the time we were thrown out.
Peterborough City Council’s call-in procedure
requires two members of a scrutiny committee to complete a form explaining the reasons for a call-in (eg failure to follow due process). The affected committee (the one within whose remit the decision takes place) then has to meet within 10 days to uphold the call-in or recommend action.
Other councils’ procedures: Hackney Hertsmere Laudably, Thurrock Council provides for both its elected Members and the public to call-in these decisions prior to implementation.
Peterborough has “suspended” its own call-in procedure on four occasions in 2005
Co-minglers might have to prove quality of result
A number of local authorities, including Peterborough co-mingle recyclables in a single collection.
Other authorities collect each recyclable item separately.
In 2008 this was demonstrated to be better value, since the end product is more likely to fetch a good price.
The Campaign for Real Recycling is challenging the asssumption so far made:
that co-mingled collections of paper, metal, plastics and glass produces a quality result.
http://www.realrecycling.org.uk/news/news39.php
A judicial review hearing will be held in Cardiff, starting on 14th December 2011.
Peterborough for Responsible Waste Management fights for good quality recycling.
