Saturday 18 October 2014

Filming council meetings - a first for Wales?


Thursday's meeting of neighbouring Pembrokeshire Council will go down in history as the one where disgraced chief executive Bryn Parry Jones was given a handsome golden parachute of £330,000 to depart before the disciplinary committee has finished it's work, the whole deal being discussed behind very un-transparent closed doors. Twenty nine councillors voted for, and twenty three against.

An almost unanimous vote earlier in the meeting, and which, perhaps understandably, almost passed unnoticed approved a motion put forward by Cllr David Howlett (Con) for the public to film all open meetings of Pembrokeshire Council, including cabinet and committees.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think this is first for Wales.

The protocol accompanying the approval is, as all council documents are, constipated, but despite some control by the Chair, prior permission is not required. The final paragraph is to allay the fears of those overly sensitive councillors that they may be made to look silly....

Anyway, it's over to the rest of Wales and particularly Pembrokeshire's fellow basket case, Carmarthenshire council; this protection of democratic rights is now the law in England, I'm sure it will be quite a simple process to copy and paste Pembrokeshire's protocol into your own Standing Orders.

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With Bryn's golden parachute sealed, don't forget to sign the petition to try and avert a similar expense concerning our own disgraced chief executive in Carmarthenshire. There's a link on my previous post; Petition - Mark James' severance deal 

1 comment:

Ian B said...

Signed, commented, donated. I can't believe the people of the county have to raise a petition... I understand the position is that WAO have called 'unlawful' yet there seems to be no response from 'law enforcement'?