Author: simon
Excluding The Public: Ventnor Winter Gardens Committee
Monday, 31st March, 2008 at 4:44 pm, Isle of Wight
There’s a growing bug bear in the UK and more generally the world, as to why the general public are being excluded from being given information by the ‘powers that be’ or just plain ignored when they object to things.
Now we all know that Ventnor isn’t high on the the list of International centres of power, but the latest agenda of the Ventnor Town Council is a little confusing.
It all looked pretty run-of-the-mill, until the agenda for the Winter Gardens Committee meeting comes into sight.
Straight after the discussion of minutes, the next item is the Exclusion of the public. Described as “To resolve that the public be excluded whilst the undermentioned matters are considered in view of the private and confidential nature of the information to be given.”
The undermentioned matters aren’t the current position of UK spies along the Baltic coast or indeed the ever-so secret plan to remove all Overners from the Island.
The undermentioned matters are in fact Report of the chairman regarding activities and events; Bar and catering concession; and report of financial officer.
Seems a little confusing quite why the public shouldn’t be able to hear about these things.
I’m sure we’d all be interested in hearing Maureen Cawley — the Chair of the Winter Garden — give all of the details.
Let’s hope those sitting on the committee do the right thing, vote No to this and let the public hear about, what is after all, the public’s Winter Gardens.
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I don’t understand why the public has to be excluded from this part of the meeting. What are they talking about that is so private?
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There are few reasons these days for excluding the public and press. I assume it is because there is something commercially sensitive in these items such as the value of the catering concessions. I guess they will have taken legal advice to make sure they don’t get caught by the Freedom of Information Act.
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Interestingly I’ve just been (politely) excluded from the above meeting. It does seem strange that a democratically elected body should appear to be so keen to conduct it’s business in camera. The reason given by the Chair, Town Clerk and a number of other members was that discussions would be of a ‘confidential, commercially sensitive nature’. Quite how sensitive this would have to be to warrant such secrecy is an interesting point. Unfortunately it gets worse. The Winter Gardens Committee minutes from 2006 onwards, (available from the Town Council’s website) all contain the same exclusion of the public item. Are we to assume therefore that the Winter Gardens commercial dealings are so top secret that they warrant a standing agenda item?
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I recall that when I was a member of the Council ( that was before they had me prosecuted and disqualified bytheStandards Board board for being rude to other councillors over the very same issue of revealing the wintergardens costs) they were doing the very same led by Val Taylor and Brenda Lawson. The issue seems to be whether or not they reveal how badly the wintergardens are doing commercially. You are right , we need to know the facts. When they conceal the facts you know there is something suspicious going on.
In my time, there was great fiddles on the takkings, and gaming machines, telephone use etc.,which was why they didnt like me asking awkward questions. The council is also still paying off the award to a previous catering contractor they sacked without good cause.( also kept secret)one of the reasons we have a tax charge that is the highest on the island.
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