(See this post for transcript of my 3 minute speech and the Chair’s extremely short reply)
Postscript:
For those who feel Cllr Clare’s conduct was brimming with anger and animosity, this (very rough clip) of her speech about Covid safety at the town hall – made just seconds before the petition item – offers some context for her extremely bad mood:
The use of a Covid safety argument to stifle committee debate became all too obvious during the Petition item when Cllr McNair took up the option to debate but was scolded for doing so. The idea that minutes shaved off a moment where debate had been sought by Councillors somehow makes a dozen or so LFT-tested and masked individuals significantly less likely to contract Covid-19 beggars belief.
This is a transcript of the video clip above:
“So in the interest of keeping this brief, I’ll keep my communications brief also, however, I cannot ignore one issue.
And that is why we are in this room. While the government declares that everyone should work from home, they only mean that if you’re not a Councillor in England. In every other nation in the United Kingdom, if you’re a Councillor has recognised the farcical nature of Councillors being dragged into council chambers when clear that the public health risk is high, and at doing so by virtual meeting is no less effective. As someone who’s caught COVID-19 Last autumn from attending meetings related to my role, let me clear that the is very real. On this committee, we have members who are clinically vulnerable, one who has decided that the risk is so high she cannot attend today, and another member who is quite clearly heavily pregnant, she’s putting herself and our unborn baby at risk, and her other small children and her household because the government are putting their fingers in their ears, and not allowing us to continue this remotely as we did. For the first year of a pandemic. There’s a petition put together on Change.org by the Association of Democratic Services Officers and the lawyers for local governments. Because let me be clear, it’s not just Councillors who are at rest, but our staff to and on a national level the organisations that represent them and making that very clear. I have tweeted the petition which is also backed by Jackie Weaver, and I urge you to sign it. There’s no use pretending that a pandemic over and doesn’t need strong measures to curb it. The more the government puts in half baked measures, the longer this pandemic will go on. Learning to live with COVID Cannot mean ignoring the risks. We’ve already seen schools and other parts of the country’s close, as they face such a shortage of teaching staff with no plan from government to address this. So the lack of measures is clearly having an impact on education across the country too; in all settings for the safety of our members of the public, I urge stronger measures.
I would like this meeting to be a place where we keep people safe. And as a result, I’m therefore going to allow only one speaker per group alongside any co-optees who wish to speak unless it is clear that we need sufficient stronger debate on the item; Limit the length of contributions so they do not go on longer than five minutes; Ask officers presenting to be as brief as possible and no longer than five minutes and ask officers who are responding to questions be brief as possible also. When we undertake the call over if you’re intending to call an item just so that you can abstain, please don’t call it and after we’ve done the call over, I will ask if there are any items you wish to abstain. I expect that may be the case with the fees and charges report. And so that’s why I’ve made that provision”. Cllr Clare
A BHCC legal officer confirms “the Chair manages the meeting and is able to determine the length of debate on a particular matter. The Council is currently managing its meetings in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic and this has led to shorter meeting in order to reduce the length of time and therefore risk of infection for those in attendance”.
Has this obnoxious woman got a vested interest in this firm & their “Commercial Sensitivities “.I would like this clearly made up phrase explaining, in an open & coherent way to we the public.Her level of aggression elevated every time her dogmatic stance was challenged, it was more than rudeness exhibited, it was the tactics of a bully & a very belligerent individual.
It is an outrage that a contentious “theory” is being inserted at the heart of learning cloaked by “Commercial Sensitives” as a means & method to hide the actual content & the actual company behind their “brainwashing program” of vulnerable & innocent children.So the serious question is who is behind this shadowy company, what is their actual agenda & why do they refuse to open their program to scrutiny?!!
Who is going to protect children against what seems to amount to phycological & emotional abuse of said children through the school system? Fortunately Mr Harts heartfelt plea on behalf of children has alerted the population to this insidious plot.
Eva Eden.
IF the council say that they cannot reveal some data due to “Commercial Sensitivities “, they could ask the company to waive these “Commercial Sensitivities “ = and certainly the council could in future specify as part of those contracts that that data will not be protected in future.
Will the pupils be bound by those “Commercial Sensitivities”? Can the pupils be allowed to take the work-sheets back home?
Apparently these “Commercial Sensitives” can be over ridden & information disclosed to serve the greater public interest.So the council should & could make a request to do just that.This is certainly an instance when it seems appropriate.
Good comments Eva and Roy. Interestingly, back in April last year the consultant made it clear to me that sharing the training material was up to the council (note: in this early phase of the strategy the training is for school staff (‘racial literacy’ for pupils comes later). In other words, the consultant deferred to the council (who had commissioned the schools intervention) over that decision. Under s43 of the FOI Act it is indeed possible to cite ‘commercial interests’ but the exemption is not absolute. The authority has to be able to show that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
Despite it being the case that the consultant (and indeed the council school officer) were agreeable to sharing this position was overruled by an executive officer. Indeed, the consultant now states that they do NOT wish to share. This whole thing comes from the top. Incredibly stupid given that (a) the publicity over this makes the council look bad and (b) someone will leak the training to us eventually anyway!
I made my FOI about this in April. It was refused via s43 two months later. My request for an Internal Review was ignored and, currently, my complaint to the ICO has elevated to full investigation. There are many ICO investigations of BHCC – its clear that they don’t give a fig about the ICO.
I’m hoping that residents (especially parents) will deluge BHCC with FOI requests for the Racial Literacy online training (for the notes and slides associated with this power point presentation) and pressurise their ward councillors to obtain it.
There is still the local council ombudsman that could be tried – in the form of a complaint about BHCCs conduct.
They might listen to the ombudsman who issue recommendations (which councils usually follow) than the toothless ICO
http://www.lgo.org.uk