The Waiheke Local Board has voted unanimously to open its workshops ‘by default’ in a move that has gone further than those adopted by the main Auckland Council. Workshops have been a contentious issue in politics over the last five years and formed a key campaign issue in the most recent local board elections.
The use of workshops by council’s gained national attention when in October 2023 Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier released a report Open for Business, which followed a year long investigation into council practices across the country. He found the common practice of excluding the public from workshops was counter to the principle of openness in local government and even if, technically, no decisions were made in the closed-door meetings, it created a public perception of secrecy and pre-determined decisions. Boshier recommended councils open workshops to the public by default and suggested they follow the same rules as for council meetings for deciding when to close. The Auckland Council voted to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations to a point, by recording workshops and making the recording available to the public afterwards but fell short of opening them to the public in ‘real time’.
• Paul Mitchell
In this week’s Gulf News……. Out now
©Waiheke Gulf News Ltd 2024
