Addendum - suggested principles to act as a foundation for standing order changes - Saturday 6th April at 15:30

We are not alone in looking for new ways to invite residents interaction - the piture alongside is from an article from Peace River, Alberta, Canada.

Principles for everyone

* Members of the public (and Town Councillors are members of the public too) should regularly and with reasonable frequency be given the opportunity to raise questions and make comment to the Town Council in a public setting. There should be no age limit.

* There should be no expectation of an immediate response to matter raised; it would be unreasonable to expect there to be an expert available to answer a question that came out of the blue. However, a substantive written response should be provided and published within a reasonable period.

* Where an input is of a complex or technical nature or has backing documentation, the person asking the question is encouraged to submit that to the Committee Clerk to help inform the written response. Note that such data may be published together with the response.

* Time is limited, and to ensure it is best used people should keep there questions short and not address a topic than another person has already addressed. The public input session is not an invitation to debate, and the chair will normally move on quickly. It may be that an issue is such that an item raised in public contributions come to the council as a subsequent agenda item.

* It is understood that it is intimidating for many people - newcomers especially - to ask questions and the chair and officers at the meeting should make them feel welcome before and during the meeting.

* It is also understood that members of the public may not be clear on council responsibilities, and responsibilities within individual committees and working groups. Members of the public should be advised where to address their input if outside the council, or have there input referred on to more appropriate groups.

* As for any meeting inputs, what's said should be kept polite, legal, and should to the best of the knowledge of the person asking the question be factually correct.

Additional for councillors (on this council)

* Councillors may also submit written questions to full council or the appropriate committee five clear working days ahead of a meeting, for a written response to be provided as a minimum of 24 hours before the commencement of the meeting.

* These questions and their written responses will be published.

A thought - why am I suggesting this just for councillors? Perhaps because the procedures could become impractically long and overrun the business of the council; at a first step, the "Principles for everyone" takes us a lot further than we have been before, and should a member of the public wish they can ask a councillor to take matters further.

Another thought - should there also be a mechanism for asking questions and getting published answers without appearing in person at a meeting to put the question?

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Original Article

The standing orders of Melksham Town Council allow a member of the public to raise a question or make comment on an item on the agenda prior to the meeting, but this has become the opportunity for members of the public to raise matters of concern.

On Tuesday, the chair of the committee that met that evening pointed out the rule, and said that it would be applied at subsequent meetings.

On Wednesday, I reported my concern at the closure of the only opportunity (apart from the annual meeting) for people to ask a question in public of the Town Council. Was I being unduly concerned, or should this matter be considered an erosion of democracy that IS a worry - leading on to wonder what should be done about it.

I got a flurry of response - aghast at change of the way the rules are to be applied; that's an excellent confirmation that I've identified something that's an issue for concerned members of the public and not just for me.

By Thursday, your inputs have been noticed, and you can celebrate the success of the informal public input triggered by your comments, as the proposer of the standing orders as they were adopted by full council in September 2021 has now said that they are out of date and need updating, rather than being applied as was decreed on Tuesday. Thank you all, and thank you Jon Hubbard for being the big man and admitting that the current rules are no longer fit for purpose.

The question - which I did not address on Wednesday - is what should apply in place of an enforcement of the current rules. "If something ain't a problem, don't try and fix it" is a good motto at the present time for a Town Council that is stretched having lost all its full time admin staff in the last 15 months and is still in the process of replacing them - and I wanted to be sure that I wasn't a lone voice calling for change. I am now satisfied that this is of sufficient general concern for a revision to be given some priority in our council's workload.

There's a need to balance the ability for the public to make inputs with the time that's available for questions and comments. There's a need to ensure that sessions are not taken over by a single contributor or group / cause to the exclusion of others. There's a need to manage expectations - people cannot realistically expect an answer to a question asked out of the blue, and perhaps to the "wrong" council meeting". There's perhaps a need to codify a timescale for a response back from the council. There's also an opportunity here to include councillors - previously excluded from "public questions" - to be allowed to ask on similar terms. And while we are at it (and if we are changing our rules) we should perhaps also codify matters relating to written questions from councillors.

Before Friday (and I am writing this on Friday), Jon Hubbard had produced draft changes which at a first reading reflect most, if not all, of the concerns. They are wordy - two pages replacing two paragraphs - and I'm now reading them with a clear head, at Jon's suggestion and invitation, to see whether I can suggest any changes to his text. I'm especially bearing in mind that the members of the public who come to address us at our meetings for the first time find it daunting , and anything we can do to help them is appreciated and widens our public involvement.

By Monday, I'll have had a chance to have some further thoughts. Jon is correct in that justified criticism of the current system and how it was to be enforced needs to be followed up by suggestions of a (better) alternative. But I do feel that my action plan
1. Assess whether the public think there is a problem
2. If so, get some idea of what all the issues are
3. Then move on to a solution
was appropriate. Jon has rather jumped the gun by offering his solution before the issues to be addressed have been defined, and I think it is does him no credit in being critical of me for looking into the problem before offering a solution. As it is, we are starting from a point of what Jon wants, and I have learned in the past (be it staffing, Assembly Hall pricing, station buses, combining mayor and leader roles) that Jon's views are not ones I necessarily feel are right for Melksham.

Image - an example of how another council has tackled this issue Source - https://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/topic/borders - interesting how even in the one sentence it comes up with another element, relating to the age of the questioner.

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Here is the text proposed - here for comment

Motion to amend how Public and Member Questions are managed by Council Meetings.

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Amend section 3
3.e Members of the public may make representations, answer questions and give evidence at a meeting which they are entitled to attend in respect of the business on the agenda.

To read

3.e Members of the public may make representations, answer questions and give evidence at a meeting which they are entitled to attend in respect of the business on the agenda (subject to the conditions set out in Section 3)

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Remove the following items from current standing orders:
3f - The period of time designated for public participation at a meeting in accordance with standing order 3(e) shall not exceed (15) minutes unless directed by the chair of the meeting.

3g - Subject to standing order 3(f), a member of the public shall not speak for more than three minutes.

3h - In accordance with standing order 3(e), a question shall not require a response at the meeting nor start a debate on the question. The chair of the meeting may direct that a written or oral response be given.

Add new Section 3

To insert a new section 3 called “Questions to Council” and then renumber remainder of document accordingly.

3. Questions/Representations to Council

Method for asking questions.
There shall be a period of no more than 30 minutes at the start of all meetings of the Town Council for members of the public and Council to ask questions and/or make representations. This time should, at the discretion of the Chair, be split 20 minutes for public questions and 10 for member questions.
Where there are a number of people who are wanting to speak, these will be taken one at a time.
The Committee Clerk will, prior to the formal opening of the meeting, ask all members of the public and councillors who wish to ask a question or make a representation to indicate and note their names for the record.
Each member of the public will then be invited to ask their first question or make their representation. Once all members of the public who wish to speak have been given the opportunity then a second round of questions can begin for those who have additional questions. Such a process to be continued until there are no more questions or the maximum time limit has been reached.
The same process to be followed for Member questions if required.

Members of the Public
Members of the public are encouraged to attend meetings of the Town Council and to raise questions of public concern at any meeting of the Full Council. At these meetings the public may ask questions or make a representation relating to any issues of council business.
Members of the public are restricted to making one representation at a meeting and should speak for no more than 3 minutes (including any question they may have relating to their representation).
Where questions are asked at committee or sub-committee meetings these should be restricted to the subject area covered by the committee/sub-committee’s Terms of Reference. Where a question is asked that is not relevant to the committee/sub-committee then it should be passed on to the relevant officer for the correct committee and a written answer provided or, at the questioner’s request, asked at the next meeting of the appropriate committee.
All questions should be directed to the Chair of the meeting who will either respond or request another councillor or officer to do so on their behalf.
Where possible all questions should be submitted in writing not less than 5 working days before the council meeting to allow the appropriate officer/councillor to prepare a proper written response which should normally be published at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. There may be occasions where this is not possible and in these cases such notice will be given to the person submitting the question and a verbal response will be given at the meeting.
Members of the public may ask questions without having given advance notice but must be aware that a detailed answer may not be possible with the opportunity to research the matter. In these instances, a written answer will be provided after the meeting, normally with 7 working days.
Where a written or verbal answer is given the original questioner may ask ONE supplementary question.
There is no debate on public questions and, unless otherwise invited by the Chair, no member of the pubic, elected member or officer should speak to an issue raised.

Elected Members of the Council
Members of the council are welcome to submit questions for inclusion on the agenda of a meeting no less than 5 working days before the date of the meeting.
Where is question is submitted within this deadline but after the agenda for a meeting being published the question should still be considered as valid and published as a supplement to the agenda.
Any questions submitted as above should receive a substantive written response at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
Members are entitled to ask questions at the beginning of a meeting without prior notice but must accept that a detailed answer is unlikely, and a subsequent written answer will be provided within 7 working days.
Where questions are asked at committee or sub-committee meetings these should be restricted to the subject area covered by the committee/sub-committee’s Terms of Reference. Where a question is asked that is not relevant to the committee/sub-committee then it should be passed on to the relevant officer for the correct committee and a written answer provided or, at the Member’s request, asked at the next meeting of the appropriate committee.
All questions should be directed to the Chair of the meeting who will either respond or request another councillor or officer to do so on their behalf.
There is no debate on public questions and, unless otherwise invited by the Chair, no member of the pubic, elected member or officer should speak to an issue raised.
Where a written or verbal answer is given the original questioner may ask ONE supplementary question.