SANDWELL COUNCIL: PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT? YOU'LL BE LUCKY TO GET THROUGH THE DOOR

I've spent a fair amount of time recently reading Sandwell Council meeting papers.

Some might say I need to get out more.

But the more of these reports I read, the more one question keeps coming back to me:

How on earth is an ordinary member of the public supposed to properly engage with this Council?

We hear all the right words.

Transparency.

Openness.

Accountability.

Community engagement.

Listening to residents.

The Council's own Constitution talks about encouraging citizen involvement.

Wonderful.

Then you actually read the rules.

And suddenly "public engagement" starts looking remarkably like:

You can engage – providing you jump through enough hoops, get there quickly enough, talk about what we allow you to talk about, and preferably don't come back for six months.

You couldn't make it up.

Three people. That's your lot.

Let's start with Full Council.

Sandwell's Constitution allows up to three members of the public to make a statement.

Not thirty.

Not thirteen.

Three.

And those three people get three minutes each.

So the grand total of formal public speaking time available at Full Council is:

Nine minutes.

Nine minutes for the public at the principal meeting of a metropolitan borough council.

The Constitution is absolutely explicit about it. Rule 12.1 limits participation to three speakers and nine minutes in total.

But it gets better.

Or considerably worse, depending upon your point of view.

Don't call it Public Question Time – because you can't actually question them

This is something that really jumped out at me when I reread the Constitution.

It isn't really Public Question Time.

It's called Public Speaking Time.

You submit a statement.

You read your statement.

And then:

"There will be no opportunity for the speaker to ask questions or respond to any debate by Full Council."

That's actually written into the rules.

The Leader or nominated Cabinet member may respond.

For one minute.

Or they can choose to respond in writing.

There is no supplementary question.

So you can't ask:

"Sorry, but you haven't answered my question."

You can't challenge the answer.

You can't correct something said in response.

You have had your three minutes.

Thank you very much.

Back to the public gallery.

Is that really meaningful public engagement?

I don't think so.

First, read the mountain of paperwork

Here's where it becomes even more ridiculous.

We've been analysing Sandwell's committee papers for some considerable time.

Some packs run to hundreds of pages.

Financial information.

Legal advice.

Equality assessments.

Appendices.

Policies.

Strategies.

Business cases.

Risk registers.

Technical reports.

Sometimes important information isn't even obvious from the main report. You've got to follow it through into an appendix buried another hundred pages into the pack.

Even councillors ought to be asking themselves whether they can genuinely digest everything being put before them.

Yet Sandwell's rules say the meeting summons and reports available at that point need only be issued at least five clear working days before the meeting.

Now look at the public-speaking rule.

The resident must submit the full and final text of their statement by noon on the third day before the meeting, excluding weekends and bank holidays.

Think about that.

You're an ordinary Sandwell resident.

You've got a job.

Or children.

Or caring responsibilities.

Perhaps you're elderly.

Perhaps you're disabled.

Perhaps you're not particularly confident online.

Perhaps you've never read a local-authority committee report in your life.

The agenda appears.

You download hundreds of pages.

You must work out what actually matters.

Understand it.

Research it.

Check the figures.

Work out what questions it raises.

Write a coherent statement.

Make sure it directly relates to an agenda item.

Submit the full and final version by the deadline.

And hope you're one of the first three people.

That's not encouraging participation.

That's designing an obstacle course.

Want to raise something the Council hasn't put on the agenda? Tough.

This one bothers me enormously.

The public statement must directly relate to something already on the Council's agenda.

Just think about the logic of that.

The Council substantially controls its own agenda.

Then the Council says the public may only use Full Council public-speaking time to discuss something the Council has already chosen to put on that agenda.

What about an emerging scandal?

A serious service failure?

A borough-wide environmental problem?

A safeguarding concern?

Something residents desperately want their Council to discuss but which isn't on the agenda?

Under these rules, Full Council public speaking isn't the route for raising it.

That's a very comfortable arrangement if you're the organisation being scrutinised.

Less comfortable if you're the resident trying to do the scrutinising.

And once you've spoken – come back in six months

This is probably my favourite bit of Sandwell-style "engagement".

The Monitoring Officer may reject your application if:

"the speaker has previously spoken at any Full Council meeting in the past six months."

Yes.

Really.

Participate once and your participation itself can become grounds for refusing you another opportunity for six months.

Imagine a resident speaks about housing in January.

Something serious happens with adult social care in March.

Then a major planning or environmental matter comes before Council in May.

Sorry.

You've already had your democratic ration.

Come back later.

The more engaged you are, the more the rules potentially work against you.

How does that sit alongside all those lovely words about encouraging citizen involvement?

Then there's the gatekeeper

The Monitoring Officer can reject a public contribution for several reasons, including if it is considered:

• defamatory;

• frivolous;

• offensive;

• substantially the same as something raised during the previous six months;

• unrelated to an agenda item;

• or submitted by someone who has already spoken during the previous six months.

Some safeguards are obviously necessary. Nobody seriously argues that defamatory or unlawful material should simply be read into a council meeting.

But when you combine all these restrictions, the discretion is substantial.

Where is the simple, independent appeal mechanism for the resident?

Where is the presumption that the public should be heard unless there is a compelling reason otherwise?

What does the evidence tell us?

Perhaps the Council would say I'm being unnecessarily cynical.

Fine.

Then let's look at the outcome.

We've been following Full Council agendas and minutes.

And what has been conspicuous?

Empty public participation sections.

No queue of residents desperate to use this wonderful democratic opportunity.

No flourishing culture of residents questioning their elected authority.

Meetings where no public statements have been submitted.

And no petitions presented at Full Council.

Now, absence doesn't prove why people aren't participating.

But surely somebody at Sandwell should be asking the obvious question:

If virtually nobody is using your Full Council public-participation mechanism, is the problem really the public – or is the mechanism rubbish?

That's the sort of KPI I'd like to see.

How many people applied?

How many were accepted?

How many rejected?

Why?

How many residents have spoken in the last five years?

How many Full Council meetings received no public contribution whatsoever?

How does that compare with other metropolitan councils?

If the answer is almost nobody participates, don't congratulate yourselves on having a participation policy.

Ask why it isn't working.

Even councillors get their questioning rationed

And it isn't only Joe Public.

Councillors' Question Time is limited to 20 minutes, with no extension.

Questions from political groups have to go through their Group Leader or Whip, only the first two submitted are accepted under the rule, and the largest opposition group's leader or nominee gets the express supplementary-question opportunity provided by the Constitution.

This is supposed to be one of the mechanisms through which the Executive is held to account.

Twenty minutes.

For a Council of 72 elected members.

Again, why design the rules around restricting scrutiny rather than facilitating it?

And what about petitions?

Another clarification is important.

Sandwell does have other petition routes, including petitions that can reach its Petitions Committee with considerably fewer signatures.

But if you want a petition presented at Full Council, the Constitution imposes additional requirements around borough-wide or strategic significance.

That raises another perfectly reasonable question:

How easy should it be for a substantial community concern to reach the borough's principal democratic chamber?

The answer shouldn't automatically be: make it as difficult as possible.

This Constitution needs reopening

The Constitution was comprehensively reviewed under the previous Labour administration.

Reform inherited it when they took control in May.

So I'm not blaming Reform for creating these particular rules.

But here's the important bit.

They own what happens next.

And actually, this is an opportunity.

Reform came into Sandwell promising change.

Well, here's some change that doesn't require another glossy strategy, consultant or twelve-month review.

Open the doors.

Make Full Council genuinely accessible.

Bring back real public questions, not merely pre-submitted statements.

Allow residents to raise legitimate matters of borough concern even where officers or the administration haven't conveniently put them on that evening's agenda.

Abolish the ridiculous six-month restriction.

Increase public speaking time.

Allow reasonable supplementary questions.

Publish major reports earlier wherever possible.

When enormous packs are unavoidable, produce a proper plain-English public summary explaining:

What are councillors being asked to decide?
How much does it cost?
Who is affected?
What are the risks?
What alternatives were considered?
How can residents comment?

And publish statistics showing whether the public-participation system is actually being used.

Reform can do something important here

There is a temptation whenever political control changes for the new administration simply to inherit the machinery and learn how to operate it.

That would be a mistake.

If Reform genuinely wants to demonstrate that Sandwell Council has changed, then change the machinery as well.

Don't merely say you're listening.

Create a Constitution which makes listening unavoidable.

Don't be frightened of awkward questions.

Don't design procedures around avoiding them.

Invite challenge.

Publish information earlier.

Let residents question the people making decisions.

And if somebody says something the administration doesn't particularly like?

Good.

That's democracy.

Public engagement isn't supposed to be comfortable.

Accountability isn't supposed to be convenient.

And Full Council shouldn't resemble a private members' club where the public are permitted nine minutes on sufferance before the politicians get on with the real business.

Sandwell's Constitution says it wants to encourage citizen involvement.

Then perhaps it's time Sandwell's Constitution actually did it.

Reform now has the opportunity to rip up the barriers inherited from the previous administration and replace them with something genuinely open, accessible and democratic.

They should take it.

Because three people, three minutes each, agenda items only, no supplementary questions and then potentially six months before you're allowed another go isn't public engagement.

It's public engagement squeezed so tightly that it's hardly surprising nobody appears to be using it.

And if we really are serious about changing Sandwell...

that would be a very good place to start.

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