Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Secret Town Council continues

There is something very wrong with the Town Council. Agendas and minutes appear and then disappear from the website. For instance:
The Agenda of the Town Council meeting for 30th June 2010 has a number of minutes for approval. These are:

Town Council 8th June 2010 minutes. Not available on website
Planning Committee 17th June 2010 minutes. Not available on website
Operations and Amenities 22nd June 2010. Agenda was available - now taken down. Minutes not available.
Finance and General Purposes 22nd June 2010. Agenda was available. Minutes not available.
Personnel Committee 28th June 2010. Agenda not available.

I just have to wonder why SNTC has to be so secret.


2 comments:

Ganesh Sittampalam said...

Never attribute to malice anything that can be explained by incompetence.

They're a small town council, probably without any good IT skills; they're probably just editing the page by hand each time and accidentally messing other stuff up at the same time.

Dave said...

I've dealt with this Town Council for a while and there is still an underlying culture of secrecy. I've been refused information I'm perfectly entitled too as an elector. I've also had to wait for the employees to ask the Town Clerk for the release of information that should be in the public domain.
Sometimes my interest is perked by a Committee or Council meetings they don't publish agendas/minutes for. There have been a few corkers contained within when finally obtained.

Many smaller Town Councils and even Parish Councils do far better than this Town Council in publishing information. I just feel there is no will to publish information. I'm pretty sure they would rather not engage with the public but they have too.

Just over a year ago I was informed the website is an issue that needed sorting out asap. A year on and I have the same complaints. Better the Town Mayor has new robes rather than the Town Council has an informative website!