Comments on: Openess and Accessibility of Cambridgeshire Police Authority

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:57:02 +0000

David you are absolutely right the meeting ought be open to the public while it debates and votes on the motion to close it to the public.

Publishing online is the only route used to publicise meetings to the public. While I believe members get papers posted to them, they too use the online version to get extra time to read them.

By: David Vincent

David Vincent — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:57:07 +0000

I always thought that a meeting was open to the public until the committee had passed a resolution to exclude them, hence the notice of the meeting and agenda still needed to be made public three days in advance of the meeting. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean being on the website - that would simply be good practice. Pinning the agenda up outside the police HQ would probably be enough to meet the statutory requirement.

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:10:19 +0000

I have quoted from Dr Gregson’s reply in this article.

Her excuse for the late publication, or failure to publish notice of, the meetings on the authority’s website was:

Regarding publication of the 14th January and 18th February Police Authority agenda, all business within these meeting fell or will fall within the closed session in accordance with clauses 3 and 4 of Part 1 of the revised schedule 12A to the Local Government Act.

This appears to be established practice as on the 15th of October 2008 her predecessor, Mr Peaston, wrote to me explaining why a full authority meeting held on the 17th of September was not publicised:

In either case, 17 or 30 September, this single item of business would have been exempt under Clauses 1 and 2 of Part 1 of The Local Government (Access to information (Variation) Order 2006, making it inappropriate to hold the meeting in public and hence meaningless to advertise it or incur the costs in doing so.

It is not acceptable for the Police Authority to hold secret meetings, they can go into closed session, but the fact they are meeting ought be publicised. Even if all agenda items are confidential members of the public might want to ask questions or make statements (as they are allowed to do) and have a right to know what is being discussed.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:00:03 +0000

The Agenda, but no papers, were made available on Monday the 16th before the meeting on Wednesday the 18th.

http://www.cambs-pa.gov.uk/meetingDetail.cfm?meetingID=252

A reference to the rules on public speaking has been included on the agenda.

As the special meeting held on the 13th of February 2009 was in fact used for broader purposes than it ought to have been including receiving reports from subcommittees the agenda for Wednesday is scant, with no substantive items of business to be taken in public.

Yet again the expanded TASER deployment is not on the agenda.

Within hours of the ministerial announcement on Monday the 24th of November 2008 the Metropolitan Police Authority announced their decision not to extend TASER use to all front line response officers in London on the grounds that they may cause fear and damage public confidence. However Cambridgeshire Police Authority are still reluctant to act, not mentioning the subject at all during their December 2008 meeting and now not having it on the agenda for their February 2009 meeting.