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Despite a request by Slieve Gullion Councillor Pete Byrne asking Newry, Mourne and Down Council officials to consider having financial matters placed in a separate document as part of agenda items, to enable more items to be discussed in public, it was very much business as usual at the March Strategy, Policy and Resources Committee meeting of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, with just two items 'for consideration and/ or decision' that were considered or decided in public! Eleven out of the thirteen items on the agenda were discussed 'in committee' ie with the public and press excluded, while three out of four items 'for noting' also excluded the press and public from reading about the matters.
Chairperson of the Strategy, Policy and Resources Committee, Councillor Oonagh Hanlon commenting on the matter at the meeting asked the officers to explain why the items are held 'in committee'
A Council official said "When the agenda is being drawn up we carefully consider each item on the agenda. There is legislation we must adhere to,
The official line is: "This item is deemed to be exempt under paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 6 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 - information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person and the public may, by resolution, be excluded during this item of business."
Speaking on the issue Slieve Gullion Councillor Pete Byrne said "When this came up before a number of months ago, we requested that maybe we look at putting the financial end of it into closed session as a seperate appendix in the document and have the general discussion, because it means that everything on SP&R is being discussed in closed session. If that could be looked at going forward maybe we could get the substantial debate with the finances seperate, because it's not good for transparancy."
Cllr Byrne continued "Usually when we go into discussions on these items we are hardly ever touching on the figures of it, but it's just a general discussion about the paper and that all shouldn't be in closed sessions. I think there could be a balance because over the years sitting on SP&R its gone from a number of items in open session to nearly one or two. Its all closed sessions so I thinks there's a way that we can have a balance."
Director of Corporate Services Josephine Kelly said "We will take a look at that proposal going forward and see if that would help in reducing the number of closed items."
Cllr Hanlon explained when Councillors came out of closed session they try to give "as much detail as we can" as to what was discussed and what was agreed. Cllr Hanlon added "Hopefully then if you are able to look at that I'd be happy to second Cllr Byrne's proposal to allow as much transparancy as possible."
Newry.ie carried out a non scientific count of the number of 'in committee' items on agendas in the month of March since 2016. The number of items held in secret at SP&R meetings has risen sharply in recent years from just two in the first few years of the new super council to the present eleven. Checking out the March meetings from 2016 on there was a noticable rise after 2018 followed by a dip in March 2020 (possibly related to the Covid pandemic just beginning) and numbers have been on the rise again since.
Number of Items held 'In Committee' at SP&R March Meetings 2017 -2022
2016: 2
2017: 2
2018: 4
2019: 14
2020: 6
2021: 9
2022: 9
2023: 11
