Should public be excluded from Finance Committee meetings?

Question

We have several committees, one of them being Finance. This is the only committee from which the public is excluded.  The committee can pass invoices for payment - up to a certain amount. They also discuss and can approve grant requests, of which we receive quite a few, again only up to a certain amount - £500. They can make suggestions about budget and precept requests, which are then taken to full council.

We are about to review the Terms of Reference. I am aware this should be done by full council at the start of the year. But  historically this has not been done. Not in the 3 years I have been on the council and all of the committees. The exclusion of the public is in the Terms and I am wondering if this is normal practice?

Thank you.

Answer 1

No it is not normal practice and probably unlawful.The public can only be excluded from attending items from meetings that are deemed exempt or confidential by reference to Schedule 12 if the Local Govt Act 1974.  And where either apply, the council must resolve to exclude the public and media by reference to the legislation. Note that the exclusion only applies to items on the Agenda not the entire meeting.  Unless every item is deemed to be exempt or confidential, the public are entitled to attend those that aren't.

Answer 2

The right of the public to be informed of a committee meeting and to be allowed to attend (but not speak unless the committee wishes) and observe cannot be excluded by the committees terms of reference  as the council cannot exclude the public from their meetings an to do so would be a breach of their code of conduct and in breach of their commitment to transparency as per statute. Only narrowly defined reasons can be used for exclusion of the public from meetings of the council and their committees.

Too many councils use working parties to do the work of the council effectively, just so they can work in secret away from the eyes of the community they serve (or should do !)

Comments

Our council uses working parties that are all open to the public, except personnel,  and which make recommendations for full council to approve, or not.

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Of course the question therefore has to be asked as to why you have working parties rather than official committees? As working parties are less formal bodies designed to exist on an ad hoc basis to investigate and report back to council the facts ascertained for their decision making. They have no power to "recommend" or given decision making powers. A committee on the other hand can have decision making powers given to them by council ( and definition of their terms of reference made specific) and are formed for generally longer periods ( annually) to cover annual requirements of the council to meet specific areas of council responsibility and as such have to meet statutory and code related operation policies. Working parties do not. As such your working parties offer on public attendance is not enforceable nor permanent.

Answer 3

No. The legislative reference is the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, which is reflected as a statutory requirement in the model standing orders at 3(d). This applies to meetings of the council and all of its committees, however the council has the power to deny public access to sub-committee meetings.

Answer 4

Thank you to everyone for your answers, which are as I expected  I will make sure this is rectified.

Comments

Words fail me
Putting on one side the legality of this what your Parish Council is saying is that once the residents have been forced to pay their precept they are basically not allowed to see how it is spent

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Thank you Jules.  I am happy to report that I raised this issue at our Governance Committee meeting last night and the offending sentence has been promptly removed. Apparently it was included 'in error'.

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Included in error for 3 years.  Well done for persisting.