Agenda item

Local Democracy

It was moved by Councillor Roger Davison, seconded by Councillor Penny Baker, that this Council:-

(a)       believes that local authorities should be transparent and accountable;

(b)       believes that authorities dominated by a single political party are in particular danger of slipping into bad practices, weak governance and reduced scrutiny;

(c)        regrets the changes made by this Administration in recent years that have resulted in it exercising greater control over a reduced scrutiny resource;

(d)       regrets the changes to the order of notices of motion introduced by this Administration which significantly restricted the opportunities for the Administration's policies relating to Sheffield to be debated in full Council;

(e)       believes that it is important for backbench Councillors of all parties to have effective roles within the Council, and for decisions to be made in public fora accessible to members of the community, and regrets much of this has been lost with the abolition of Community Assemblies; and

(f)        believes that the holding of Council meetings in the daytime makes them inaccessible to most members of the public, noting that Community Assembly meetings were successfully held in the evening, and therefore calls upon the Leader of the Council to bring forward proposals for more meetings to be held in the evenings.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Sarah Jane Smalley, seconded by Councillor Brian Webster, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the addition of a new paragraph (g) as follows:-

(g)       further requests that the current review of Local Area Partnerships being carried out by the Sustainable City Team include:

(i)        an evaluation of whether enough support is being allocated for effective engagement with community organisations and the third sector at a time where more is being expected of them due to economic pressures; and

(ii)       an evaluation of whether different wards require different levels of support, based not only on IMD data, but the size and variety of communities they serve.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

The original Motion was then put to the vote and negatived.