Carterton council 'not secretive'

SECRECY DISPUTED: Carterton Mayor John Booth (left) says council meetings are accessible.

Figures showing Carterton District Council spent more time excluding the public from its meetings than the previous year do not mean the council is being more secretive, says Mayor John Booth.

Performance measures released in the council's recent annual report showed 10.6 per cent of all agenda items were discussed without the public present, up from 8 per cent the previous year.

The council's target, as part of its obligations under the Local Government Act to conduct its business in an "open, transparent and democratically accountable manner", was to have fewer than 5 per cent of items discussed with public excluded.

The Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, allows the council to ask the public to leave for several reasons, including to protect the privacy of individuals, or to allow it to carry out negotiations without prejudice or disadvantage.

Mr Booth said the council always had good reasons when it excluded the public. "Basically they were specific items related to personal matters and that's why there was a little bit more this year because we don't discuss matters that directly related to people's personal circumstances and that's a figure that can fluctuate year to year quite dramatically and I think that as a council we are pretty open. We are very conscious of being open and transparent as a council so it's certainly not a deliberate thing to go and be more secretive, if that's the word you want to use."

The criteria for what should be excluded was "fairly cut and dried", Mr Booth said.

Council staff reviewed agenda to identify items that might need to be discussed without the public and then brought these to him for approval, he said.

"They will identify what needs to be excluded and then they come to me and have a discussion with me ... It's pretty black and white as to what should be in there and what shouldn't be."

The 5 per cent target was set by council, Mr Booth said.

"It's what we'd like to have but sometimes it's not possible to achieve exactly what you'd like to have. In an ideal world there would be nothing in public excluded, but there's no such thing."

Councillor Mike Palmers said he believed all the issues discussed with public excluded were appropriate, but too many issues were discussed in the council-only workshops held before the meeting.

"I don't like the idea of so many things being caucused before the meeting because the public don't get to see the debate. I think it's a case of too much being workshopped and that has become an effective tool of excluding the public ... it doesn't allow the public to see the council and councillors and get an opportunity to see where they are coming from."

A collective position was often reached during these workshops, Mr Palmers said.

"I don't think it's fair to the public because we are their representatives and I think the public wants to know and understand the views and positions of their representatives on different issues."

Workshops normally ran for several hours before the meeting, he said.

"And that's why council meetings are so short because we've already done two and a half hours of council meeting things, effectively."