Feedback from Copeland BC Executive

I attended the meeting of Copeland Borough Council's executive this morning.

It is in the public domain that the executive discussed the issue of Bransty Cliffs in my ward. I am not allowed to say more than this because the discussion included discussion of issues which might affect things like property negotiations or bids for contracts to carry out work: it was the kind of discussion which is exempt from the requirement to be held in public because it is not in the interests of local taxpayers to give away the council's negotiating position.

However I hope and expect that detail of the action the council is looking to take will be made public as soon as it is compatible with the interests of local taxpayers to do so.

The executive also made a recommendation to full council about the CBC budget.

I expect that there will be a lot of further debate about several aspects of the budget including car parking charges.

However I want at this stage to note two positive points.

First, the coalition government has kept the election promise to make a council tax freeeze possible. In Copeland Borough Council's case, the government has offered £400,000 over four years to enable the council to keep the Copeland element of the council tax fixed and ensure that it doesn't just jump up by an equivalent amount next year or in one of the following two years. The Executive has recommended that the council take up this offer from the government.

Second, the recommendation is that the allowances paid to Copeland councillors will be frozen for the third consecutive year.

There are a lot of councils whose members pay themselves much more than the allowances paid to most members of Copeland council, and who increase it every year without fail no matter what else they have to cut.

Whatever criticisms are made of Copeland Councillors (and there are many) they are far more restrained than the members of many other authorities in the allowances they pay themselves.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Is this secrecy the reason why the Agenda and Documents weren't available for public inspection prior to the meeting?
Chris Whiteside said…
No: the agenda, and all the papers other than those for the item on Bransty cliffs, should have been available to the public.
Anonymous said…
should have been, but weren't.
Chris Whiteside said…
That isn't satisfactory. If you want to drop me an email with the details of when you asked to see them, I will take the matter up.

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