Council Members Bash Labour’s Total Control of Sefton Council Committees

Opposition councillors on Sefton were disappointed to find that despite Sefton’s dramatic elections last month, Sefton’s Labour group were not ready for a fresh start as they insisted on chairing every council committee including all those meant to scrutinise the effectiveness of their administration. Labour’s majority was dramatically slashed with the Liberal Democrats gaining 8 seats

 In many other councils and in parliament Scrutiny Committees are led by members of all parties proportional to their strengths. Labour has now just over 50% the seats in Sefton but insists on chairing 100% of all the committees including critically those that examine progress being made by the council and financial risk and effectiveness. In a further move, the number of full Council meetings and opportunities to publicly question the ruling Labour administration was reduced.

“This is is not only the wrong way to run a public body,” says opposition leader, Liberal Democrat John Pugh.  “It’s a terrible example to the borough’s children. We all try hard to persuade little children and grandkids that sharing is good but at council level grabbing what you can seems to be the rule. Happily children are extremely unlikely to You Tube Sefton Council.

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There is no coherent argument though or principle for such a monopoly which would not be tolerated in Parliament or in better run councils. Insisting on handing out the key scrutiny jobs to your own people to mark their own homework is bad practice, an unacceptable form of patronage and looks like you have something to hide. 

If a councillor has any ambitions to be one of the better paid cabinet members in the current administration,  it’s not likely they’ll be asking the awkward questions during the scrutiny process which is why in parliament no one party is allowed to chair all the scrutiny committees. 

We do get independent and effective Labour chairs, even in Sefton, but monopolies, patronage and an unwillingness to share are indefensible. 

We have a system where the Prime Minister has to answer questions from MPs for half an hour every week in public on the record, but this Thursday Sefton adopted a system where the Leader of Sefton Council would answer public questions from other councillors for as little as 15 minutes every year. “ 

Cllr. Pugh’s proposal to allocate Scrutiny Chairs by Council strength and prevent a monopoly was defeated at the Thursday’s Council meeting in a close vote with ALL opposition parties supporting it. 

The full Council debate on this matter can be found here https://sefton.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/1094061/start_time/663000