Our democracy is being denied, fear councillors

DORSET Council is ‘ denying democracy’, according to a Dorchester councillor. Cllr Alistair Chisholm said he found it incredible that the national parliament continues to operate while Dorset Council is struggling with the full democratic inclusion of all of its 82 members.

The authority has cancelled all of its full council meetings until the autumn, although the decision will be reviewed as the pandemic situation changes. It claims that linking up all councillors online is technically difficult so only small committees and panels, which are not open to the public, are continuing to function.

The effect is that the majority of councillors are not taking part in the full democratic process with the emergency measures resulting in all the key decisions being taken by the all-Conservative cabinet, which only has one woman member.

Some back-bench councillors, who each receive a basic allowance of £13,000 a year, will have no committees to attend which are open to the public, albeit online, although may have panels and work in their wards for constituents to attend to.

Cllr Chisholm, a town councillor in Dorchester, said: “I do hope, for the sake of democracy, that we get back to a more inclusive council as soon as possible, and certainly by June. Other councils are operating with all the members involved; why has Dorset managed to use this as an excuse to go back to just the cabinet making the decisions?

“It’s quite monstrous. Of course we are in a crisis but that’s no reason not to listen to every single person who has been elected to that council and I would hope that would change very, very quickly.”

Dorset Council member Cllr David Taylor, who represents Charminster and also sits on Dorchester Town Council, said he was also concerned about what he described as the lack of democracy.

“They have been cancelling our meetings left, right and centre. I was surprised to hear of one being cancelled even in October. I don’t know what is going on there, but it’s not being very democratic,” he said.

Weymouth Conservative councillor Louie O’Leary has previously called for more meetings to be held. He says that is what councillors are elected to do – represent constituents’ views.

A Dorset Council meeting last week heard that there has been growing pressure for online meetings with around 100 appeals over school places expected to be held during June alone.

Councillors also take part in regular ‘webinar’ meetings and extraordinary panels on a range of subjects, none of which is open to the public.

The authority’s leader, Cllr Spencer Flower, has said that with the social distancing restrictions and limits on technology and officer time, many of whom are working from home, the council is doing the best that it can to return to something approaching full democracy.