Council used to produce the Agenda for an upcoming Council Meeting 14 days ahead of the Council meeting. This was to ensure that the public had sufficient time to read the contents and if desiring to make a public presentation about any matter they had time to organise themselves, to contact council, and to discuss the agenda item with one or more of their local Councillors.
Limited Time to view Council agenda before Council meeting.
Council used to produce the Agenda for an upcoming Council Meeting 14 days ahead of the Council meeting. This was to ensure that the public had sufficient time to read the contents and if desiring to make a public presentation about any matter they had time to organise themselves, to contact council, and to discuss the agenda item with one or more of their local Councillors.
Since around September 2019, Council changed this procedure. Now, the agenda papers are published late on Friday afternoon and people who wish to make a public presentation on any matter in the agenda, must have their application to present lodged with Council by 9am Monday morning ahead of the Wednesday Council meeting. No time to chat to anyone at Council before your submission had to be lodged.
One advantage in having the agenda papers out two weeks ahead of the Council meeting is that it allowed the local press chance to inform the public of upcoming matters that might be of interest to the community.
This matter was raised with Council who provided the following by way of explanation as to why this change was made and the process leading up to the decision.
The Administrators have been tasked with reviewing governance practices and policies during their term. As part of this review, they requested the Acting Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Sword, to undertake a comparative review of the Council agenda process through the Chief Executive Officers’ network. The findings identified Councils release their agendas to the public between two to 7 days ahead of the Council meeting. This ensures Councils have the most current information available to make informed decisions, which is the primary purpose of an agenda. Publishing an agenda two weeks ahead of a meeting requires reports to be written up to four weeks ahead of the Council meeting, which does not support provision of the most up to date advice to the Council. It should be noted that the current Local Law requires the agenda to be published 48 hours ahead of the meeting, so our practice is still significantly ahead of what is required, and provides six days for the community to review the agenda ahead of the meeting.
Council uses a range of means to ensure community views are incorporated into Council’s decision making. For example, public presentation sessions, questions to Council, petitions, personal meetings with Administrators and staff, community engagement activities, planning hearings and submissions are just a few of the frequently used options. Administrators are satisfied that the current practice strikes the right balance between provision of up to date advice to Council and community access to the agenda. Council will continue to release the Agenda in accordance with the current practice that has now been effectively in place since September 2019.
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