Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The recent Daly St issue has led to some comment about public excluded items at Council meetings.
Since January 2007, there have been 32 Council meetings and 43 standing committee meetings. At these meetings there have been 655 public items and 41 public excluded items.
The items that were public excluded were most often for issues such as the Chief Executive’s appointment or remuneration, the appointment of directors or Council representatives, individual land transactions, and selection of civic honours recipients.
Items are also considered as public excluded if making information available would be likely to unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of third parties. Since January 2007 this has happened for discussions on two issues, Daly St and Smartlinx3.
Council’s policy is to hold all meetings and conduct its business in an open and transparent manner unless there is good reason to withhold or protect information under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.