October 27, 2023 7:00am by David Farrar

The culture of secrecy

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier said there had been no evidence – from his investigation into eight councils – that showed decisions themselves had been made in workshops.

However, he said practices – including making workshops closed-door by default – were counter to transparency and accountability principles.

Boshier said: “Meetings should be open to the public, unless there is good reason to exclude them. These meeting requirements can’t be avoided simply by calling what is really a meeting a workshop.

“I also discovered that a range of council officials and elected members didn’t want to open workshops for a number of reasons including that asking questions could make them look stupid. I don’t consider that to be a valid reason to close a workshop.

“Elected members should be resilient enough to withstand reasonable public scrutiny. It is the job they are elected to do.”

Here’s an idea. Don’t stand for Council if you don’t want public scrutiny.