By Victoria Stone-Meadows
YARRA Ranges Councillor Fiona McAllister has called on her fellow councillors and the council’s governance team to decrease the number of confidential items considered by council.
Cr McAllister made an impassioned plea at a council meeting held on Tuesday 13 September regarding the transparency of council dealings.
“This is a topic we have discussed on many occasions in the last four years in different ways, and I put before you a step forward in dealing with information that comes to council,” she said.
“People have greater confidence in decisions that are made in the open, and the perception is that decisions made behind closed doors is something is being hidden.”
Cr McAllister spoke about the benefits of increasing council transparency as well as the trends of other local governments.
She suggested a method called twinned reports, where two copies of a single report are made, and one version is released to the public with only the sensitive information removed.
This would reduce the overall number of items that are considered by council during the confidential portion of the meetings, and give the public more understanding of council processes.
“Taking information back to the public domain and implementing twinned reports would be positive,” Cr McAllister said.
“The trend is heading that way in the sector, is common overseas, stand us in good stead with our community relationships, and brings information out with a gallery present.”
Cr McAllister also said after the council meeting that ratepayers in the Yarra Ranges Sire had a right to know more details about how public money was spent and managed.
“I’m a big believer in public money – in ratepayers money – that we are making decisions on how to spend, that those decisions be made out in the open,” she said.
The recommendation Cr McAllister put forward at the recent council meeting would see less confidential items at future meetings through closer inspection of the items being considered as confidential.
The recommendation was supported by councillors Jim Child and Len Cox who both spoke in favour of Cr McAllister’s motion.
“I appreciate section 89.2 of the [local government] act, and we have to abide by that but there is flexibility there,” Cr Child said.
“We can have these debates in public and motions can bring bodies of work in the public domain then bring back for out approval.
“It is a step in the right direction and while we practice good governance and are clear and transparent, this is a good step.”
The recommendation was passed unanimously, and Cr McAllister said it was now up to the governance team at the council to work on improving council’s transparency.
