Council spends less time behind closed doors: report

Saskatoon city council and its committees appear to be reducing the amount of time they meet behind closed doors, a new report suggests.

The number of hours politicians and administrators at city hall spend meeting in camera dropped substantially over three years analyzed in a new report by the City of Saskatoon’s director of government relations Mike Jordan.

Jordan’s analysis shows since council changed the committee structure in August of 2014, the private meetings dropped, both in terms of the percentage of total meetings and in actual hours. However, Jordan pointed out, the 2016 election year may have skewed the results.

Jordan said the analysis is not intended to draw conclusions about why the trend appears to be toward more transparency, but added it could be a concerted effort by council and administration to operate more openly.

“That’s one conclusion you can draw, for sure,” Jordan said in an interview Friday. “There’s always going to be a need for council and committees to go in camera to discuss certain items.”

In the first year of the study, August of 2014 to July of 2015, council and committees met for 275.9 hours, 40.9 per cent or 112.8 hours of which were in meetings that excluded the public.

In the second year, 2015/2016, the number of meeting hours dropped to 219.8, 21.5 per cent of which were in camera or 47.3 hours. In Year 3, 2016/17, which would have included the municipal election and a month with no meetings, the hours of meetings rose, but so did the number behind closed doors and the percentage.

In 2016/2017, council and committees met for 261.4 hours, 26.2 per cent of which or 68.5 hours were in camera.

Jordan said the extra time in camera during the final year of analysis might be attributable to orientation needed for new councillors.

The analysis may not be conclusive, but it will provide a baseline for future comparisons, Jordan said. The report suggests a threeyear rolling average might provide a better basis for comparison since issues can change from year to year.

Overall, an average of 29 per cent of all meeting hours were confidential over the three years.

The study focused on the governance and priorities committee, which includes all council members and used to be called executive committee.

In 2014-2015, this committee met 36 times in camera using the exemption for “city council business” and another 13 for “consultations/deliberations.” Neither of these exemptions were used in the following two years.

The number of exemptions used to justify confidential governance and priorities committee meetings declined steadily over the three years from 150 in 2014/2015 to 63 in 2015/2016 to 44 in 2016/2017.

The study shows the finance committee is meeting for longer hours over the three years, but also that the percentage of time spent in camera has dropped. The finance committee is often tasked with considering confidential items like land sales and financial information.

In the third year, 69 per cent of the finance committee’s 22.7 hours of meetings were held in public sessions.

The reports points out that although the provincial Cities Act provides exemptions to meet in camera, the expectation is that business be conducted in public unless a “clear and identifiable harm” to the city can be proven.

The governance and priorities committee will consider the report at its meeting Monday.