Agenda item

7.1

It was formally moved by Councillor Martin Smith, and formally seconded by Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, that this Council:-

(a)       believes that trust, truth and transparency are the bedrock of good governance;

(b)       believes that a lack of openness erodes confidence and trust in local government and agrees with the Leader of Rotherham Council that “you can’t be accountable without being transparent”;

(c)        agrees with the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government (Commons Select) Committee and former leader of Sheffield City Council, Clive Betts MP, that a council’s organisational culture is the most significant factor in whether scrutiny is effective, and that commercial confidentiality should not be used as an excuse to inhibit scrutiny;

(d)       notes that, at the present time, Sheffield City Council does not broadcast or record public meetings, unlike other core city councils, for example Leeds and Manchester;

(e)       notes the recommendation of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that all contracts should be available to be reviewed by councillors in overview and scrutiny committees;

(f)        notes that over the last three years, the refusal rate (including partial refusals) for FOI requests to Sheffield City Council has increased from 21% to 32%;

(g)       notes that it took more than two years for opposition Councillors to be given sight of the agreements made with Sichuan Guodong Construction;

(h)       notes that more than five years after the PFI contract was signed with Amey, opposition Councillors have still not been given sight of an un-redacted copy of the contract;

(i)         believes this demonstrates a worrying trend towards secrecy and a lack of transparency in Sheffield City Council, which restricts the ability of Councillors and members of the public to scrutinise the activities of the Council; and

(j)         resolves to undertake a wholesale review into the Council’s lack of transparency with recommendations from that review to be bought back to full Council within a year, and requests the Chief Executive to commission that review.

7.2

Whereupon, it was formally moved by Councillor Chris Peace, and formally seconded by Councillor Dawn Dale, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)       fully agrees that transparency and openness are important in accountability and believes it is important that the Council does everything to be as open and transparent as possible;

(b)       notes that Sheffield City Council welcomed the report from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee and the recognition of the important role scrutiny plays in local government - both in holding decision makers to account and in developing policy;

(c)        further notes that Sheffield Council submitted evidence to the aforementioned Committee during the Inquiry and is looking in detail at the findings and recommendations in the report and plans to bring a report to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee;

(d)       notes, in addition, that many of the recommendations in the Select Committee’s report call on the Government to issue revised guidance to local authorities and that we have already identified and are working on some of these areas, such as how we can better engage and involve the public in Scrutiny’s work alongside helping scrutiny members to develop their skills and knowledge through training;

(e)       acknowledges that the Select Committee report does refer to examples whereby information has needed to be withheld, often on the grounds of commercial sensitivity, however Sheffield councillors, including those sitting on Scrutiny Committees, have rights of access to information and the Council complies with these requirements;

(f)        highlights that the Council is unaware of any situation where commercial sensitivity has been used to inhibit formal Scrutiny, with Scrutiny Committee Members provided with confidential documentation that is not publicly available in order to ensure they have all of the information available to them to enable proper scrutiny of the matter before them;

(g)       notes that a scrutiny committee looking at a particular issue can ask to see relevant information and request clarification of a matter from officers, and that this may include appropriate access to an un-redacted version of a contract if it would help the Scrutiny Committee Councillors understand the position;

(h)       regrets the trend from the main opposition group to mislead local people and that this is continued in this notice of motion itself; with the main opposition group attempting to mislead on the following matters, which can be clarified as follows:-

(i)         the Council is considering options to broadcast and record Council meetings as part of the cross party working group reviewing Full Council meetings, and the main opposition group are a member of this cross party working group;

(ii)        decisions around access to contracts and commercial sensitivity is rightly not taken by councillors but by politically independent Council officers;

(iii)       the agreement with Sichuan Guodong, which opposition councillors have asked questions about, was signed in July 2016, less than two years ago; and

(iv)       senior officers have offered to allow the main opposition group the opportunity to access the Streets Ahead contract, which has not been taken up by the main opposition group;

(i)         supports the principle that as much information should be published and be as easily accessible for the public to access as possible, however, recognises that all public bodies have to redact elements of contracts due to commercial sensitivity and this is because of legal obligations to do so, and where information is redacted this is based on the legal opinion of politically independent Council officers;

(j)         recalls that when the previous Administration, of which the current Leader of the Main Opposition Group was a member of the Cabinet, released the Sheffield Highway Maintenance PFI Project Descriptive Document in April 2009, there was a section of the document entitled ‘Commercial Confidentiality’ which included the following passage -

            “The Authority is very conscious of Bidders’ concerns in relation to commercial confidentiality and believes that the Competitive Dialogue process may potentially be undermined by the sharing of Bidders’ Solutions. In order to address Bidders’ concerns, a Bid Process Agreement has been developed which relates to the Bidders’ use of confidential Authority information and the confidentiality of Bidders’ Solutions during dialogue and evaluation, together with freedom of information protocols

            Protocols have been developed to ensure that Bidder queries are responded to with commercial confidentiality in mind, with sharing of information with other Bidders only permitted if queries are not Bidder specific, have first been made anonymous and where the sharing of the information is not materially detrimental to the Bidder raising the initial query or to the competitive process.” ; and

(k)        regrets that the main opposition group have failed to put forward positive proposals to improve transparency and this is in contrast to the establishment of the cross party full council working group to make improvements to full council meetings, and the Administration will continue to consider ways in which the Council can improve engagement with local people, including through consultation, scrutiny and other public forums.

7.3

It was then formally moved by Councillor Adam Hanrahan, and formally seconded by Councillor Penny Baker, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the addition of new paragraphs (k) to (q) as follows:-

(k)        welcomes the fact that a Sheffield branch of the People’s Audit has been established;

(l)         notes that the People’s Audit is based on the legal right of local residents to inspect, question and challenge items in their council’s accounts, established in the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014;

(m)      notes that the People’s Audit has been proven to bring transparency, empowerment to local people, and improvement in other local authorities;

(n)       believes that this will create an opportunity for the people of Sheffield to play an active role in decision-making at Sheffield City Council;

(o)       recommends that this Council meet with the People’s Audit representatives to discuss how they can carry out an audit on the Streets Ahead contract;

(p)       resolves to empower and support the citizens of Sheffield to have full access as possible to transparently scrutinise spending of Council money and resources; and

(q)       thereby requests the Director of Legal and Governance to produce a clear guide for citizens outlining how they can access this information, with openness being at the forefront of thought when producing this guide.

7.4

It was then formally moved by Councillor Rob Murphy, and formally seconded by Councillor Magid Magid, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the addition of new paragraphs (k) to (r) as follows:-

(k)        believes that the process of decision making in the Council is not transparent, as demonstrated by the Chinese Investment Deal regarding the Central Library, the Highways PFI with Amey and the recent Call-In on the Mount Pleasant development;

(l)         believes that a lack of transparency has contributed to continued reputational damage to the City and the Council, which has already suffered from the Hillsborough Disaster cover up and a failure to bring Roger Dodds to justice at the time;

(m)      notes, despite promises, that recordings of meetings of the Full Council remain unpublished;

(n)       notes the rejection of Budget amendments from two of the opposition parties that provided for the recording and public viewing of public meetings of the Council;

(o)       notes a huge amount of Officer time and resources is spent on dealing with Freedom of Information requests;

(p)       believes all public Council meetings should be recorded and made publicly available via the Council website;

(q)       believes all Council contracts over £500 should be disclosed on the grounds of public interest; and

(r)        believes all meetings between planning officers and developers, and procurement officers and commercial interests, should be registered.

7.5

The amendment moved by Councillor Chris Peace was put to the vote and was carried.

7.6

The amendment moved by Councillor Adam Hanrahan was then put to the vote and was negatived.

7.6.1

The votes on the amendment were ordered to be recorded and were as follows:-

For the amendment (19)

-

The Deputy Lord Mayor (Councillor Magid Magid) and Councillors Andy Nash, Richard Shaw, Douglas Johnson, Robert Murphy, Adam Hanrahan, Joe Otten, Colin Ross, Martin Smith, Roger Davison, Shaffaq Mohammed, Sue Alston, Andrew Sangar, Ian Auckland, Steve Ayris, Gail Smith, Alison Teal, David Baker and Penny Baker.

Against the amendment (49)

-

The Lord Mayor (Councillor Anne Murphy) and Councillors Chris Rosling-Josephs, Ian Saunders, Sophie Wilson, Denise Fox, Bryan Lodge, Karen McGowan, Michelle Cook, Kieran Harpham, Jackie Drayton, Talib Hussain, Mazher Iqbal, Mary Lea, Zahira Naz, Andy Bainbridge, Steve Wilson, Abdul Khayum, Abtisam Mohamed, Lewis Dagnall, Cate McDonald, Chris Peace, Bob Johnson, George Lindars-Hammond, Josie Paszek, Lisa Banes, Terry Fox, Pat Midgley, David Barker, Tony Downing, Mohammad Maroof, Jim Steinke, Julie Dore, Ben Miskell, Jack Scott, Dianne Hurst, Peter Rippon, Dawn Dale, Peter Price, Garry Weatherall, Mike Chaplin, Jayne Dunn, Richard Crowther, Olivia Blake, Ben Curran, Neale Gibson, Adam Hurst, Zoe Sykes, Jackie Satur and Paul Wood.

Abstained from voting on the amendment (3)

-

Councillors Jack Clarkson, Keith Davis and John Booker.

7.7

The amendment moved by Councillor Rob Murphy was then put to the vote and was negatived.

7.7.1

(NOTE: Councillors Andy Nash, Richard Shaw, Adam Hanrahan, Joe Otten, Colin Ross, Martin Smith, Roger Davison, Shaffaq Mohammed, Sue Alston, Andrew Sangar, Ian Auckland, Steve Ayris, Gail Smith, David Baker and Penny Baker voted for paragraphs (k) to (p) and (r) and abstained from voting on paragraph (q) of the amendment, and asked for this to be recorded.)

7.8

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-

RESOLVED: That this Council:-

(a)       fully agrees that transparency and openness are important in accountability and believes it is important that the Council does everything to be as open and transparent as possible;

(b)       notes that Sheffield City Council welcomed the report from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee and the recognition of the important role scrutiny plays in local government - both in holding decision makers to account and in developing policy;

(c)        further notes that Sheffield Council submitted evidence to the aforementioned Committee during the Inquiry and is looking in detail at the findings and recommendations in the report and plans to bring a report to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee;

(d)       notes, in addition, that many of the recommendations in the Select Committee’s report call on the Government to issue revised guidance to local authorities and that we have already identified and are working on some of these areas, such as how we can better engage and involve the public in Scrutiny’s work alongside helping scrutiny members to develop their skills and knowledge through training;

(e)       acknowledges that the Select Committee report does refer to examples whereby information has needed to be withheld, often on the grounds of commercial sensitivity, however Sheffield councillors, including those sitting on Scrutiny Committees, have rights of access to information and the Council complies with these requirements;

(f)        highlights that the Council is unaware of any situation where commercial sensitivity has been used to inhibit formal Scrutiny, with Scrutiny Committee Members provided with confidential documentation that is not publicly available in order to ensure they have all of the information available to them to enable proper scrutiny of the matter before them;

(g)       notes that a scrutiny committee looking at a particular issue can ask to see relevant information and request clarification of a matter from officers, and that this may include appropriate access to an un-redacted version of a contract if it would help the Scrutiny Committee Councillors understand the position;

(h)       regrets the trend from the main opposition group to mislead local people and that this is continued in this notice of motion itself; with the main opposition group attempting to mislead on the following matters, which can be clarified as follows:-

(i)         the Council is considering options to broadcast and record Council meetings as part of the cross party working group reviewing Full Council meetings, and the main opposition group are a member of this cross party working group;

(ii)        decisions around access to contracts and commercial sensitivity is rightly not taken by councillors but by politically independent Council officers;

(iii)       the agreement with Sichuan Guodong, which opposition councillors have asked questions about, was signed in July 2016, less than two years ago; and

(iv)       senior officers have offered to allow the main opposition group the opportunity to access the Streets Ahead contract, which has not been taken up by the main opposition group;

(i)         supports the principle that as much information should be published and be as easily accessible for the public to access as possible, however, recognises that all public bodies have to redact elements of contracts due to commercial sensitivity and this is because of legal obligations to do so, and where information is redacted this is based on the legal opinion of politically independent Council officers;

(j)         recalls that when the previous Administration, of which the current Leader of the Main Opposition Group was a member of the Cabinet, released the Sheffield Highway Maintenance PFI Project Descriptive Document in April 2009, there was a section of the document entitled ‘Commercial Confidentiality’ which included the following passage -

            “The Authority is very conscious of Bidders’ concerns in relation to commercial confidentiality and believes that the Competitive Dialogue process may potentially be undermined by the sharing of Bidders’ Solutions. In order to address Bidders’ concerns, a Bid Process Agreement has been developed which relates to the Bidders’ use of confidential Authority information and the confidentiality of Bidders’ Solutions during dialogue and evaluation, together with freedom of information protocols

            Protocols have been developed to ensure that Bidder queries are responded to with commercial confidentiality in mind, with sharing of information with other Bidders only permitted if queries are not Bidder specific, have first been made anonymous and where the sharing of the information is not materially detrimental to the Bidder raising the initial query or to the competitive process.”; and

(k)        regrets that the main opposition group have failed to put forward positive proposals to improve transparency and this is in contrast to the establishment of the cross party full council working group to make improvements to full council meetings, and the Administration will continue to consider ways in which the Council can improve engagement with local people, including through consultation, scrutiny and other public forums.

7.8.1

(NOTE: 1. Councillors Andy Nash, Richard Shaw, Adam Hanrahan, Joe Otten, Colin Ross, Martin Smith, Roger Davison, Shaffaq Mohammed, Sue Alston, Andrew Sangar, Ian Auckland, Steve Ayris, Gail Smith, David Baker and Penny Baker voted for paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (e) and against paragraphs (d) and (f) to (k) of the Substantive Motion, and asked for this to be recorded; and

2. The Deputy Lord Mayor (Councillor Magid Magid) and Councillors Douglas Johnson, Robert Murphy and Alison Teal voted for paragraphs (a) to (d) and against paragraphs (e) to (k) of the Substantive Motion, and asked for this to be recorded.)