Councillor Julie Morris is right to highlight the persistent non attendance of some councillors at council committee meetings.
This problem would likely disappear if attendance figures were readily available to the public.
Unfortunately, they are not.
Currently, if you want to know how many meetings a councillor has missed, you have to put in a Freedom of Information request to the council or you have to trawl through the published minutes of every meeting they were supposed to attend to see if they were there or not.
Councillors receive extra allowances for membership of certain committees, the planning committee for example, or for extra responsibilities. The extra allowance is given even whether the councillor attends the meetings or not.
Surely when the minutes are taken at committee meetings, a register could also be taken and published on the council's website?
People could then see at a glance which councillors were missing too many of their meetings and likewise, how hard the other diligent councillors are working. People could then vote accordingly.
Regards,
Barbara Arrowsmith
Ruxley Ward
- Send your letters to: letters@epsomguardian.co.uk
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