Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Council should be more open

Neath Port Talbot council observes the national Code of Conduct regarding declaration of councillors' interests, but only on paper. The register of members' interests is accessible only during office hours at the Port Talbot civic centre, and only when an officer is free to supervise access.

We feel that our council should follow the lead set by Swansea City - on a Liberal Democrat initiative - and put the register on its web pages. This would make it available to anyone who can use a PC, wherever they live in the county borough.

The council has had poor press in recent weeks over its attitude to democracy. Putting the councillors interests register on the Web would be a small step towards improving its reputation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any opposition councillor worth his/her salt would have chased this up already! It certainly appears that labour is getting a free ride with such matters since the opposition councillors are totally obedient to what the labour party wants.....clear example was when during the latest Budget meeting a mere three Ratepayer (seen as the opposition in Port Talbot) turned up for the budget, there are infact 10 Ratepayer councillors!!! Two of these councillors stayed until the vote, and both of them voted in favour of the budget!
Oppostion councillors are there to oppose, not agree with the budget by voting for it!

Anonymous said...

Point of Order: Plaid Cymru are the official opposition group in NPT not the Ratepayers and there are 9 of them not 10.

The role of any opposition group is not to vote on principle against everything the ruling group propose but to scrutinise.

If you're going to have a dig of the Ratepayers then start by asking "who are they and why?". If they're serious about politics then they should join a party!