Monday 12 July 2010

More information for citizens?

The Daily Post, and to a lesser extent the Liverpool Echo, have today published a story about my call for recorded votes in the Council Chamber and for more transparency on the part of organisations taking decisions affecting citizens.

Here's a link to the story in the Daily Post.

I'll gloss over the comment from Cllr Anderson (although Joe you really do need to speak to your own staff and team before making an assumption like that) and focus on the absolutely dismissive response from Merseytravel.

What I asked for was for organisations, like the Transport Authority, which are making decisions affecting citizens to at the very least put their meeting minutes and agendas on-line.

We are told that agendas and minutes are provided to the local media and to relevant councils but when it comes to members of the public (citizens and taxpayers)
"Agendas and minutes are.. available on request to anyone who applies through the appropriate channel". So in other words anyone wanting information first has to find out what the appropriate channel is (we are not told) and then find out how to apply through it! They would also have to know in advance the date, time and name of the meeting so that they could phrase their request. It would be hard to be less transparent than this!

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