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Back to the future for Shire of York

Senior administration running scared, acts to restore old order

‘I decide what you can ask during Public Question Time’, says Acting CEO

If you are on the Shire’s e-mailing list, you will have received on Friday afternoon a copy of the following declaration, signed by Acting CEO Simpson:

(click to enlarge)

In a nutshell, the Acting CEO is laying down what he fondly believes is the law relating to Public Question Time.  He is wrong.

Worse, what he’s proposing is an affront to the democratic rights and interests of York residents and ratepayers.  

Let me explain.

‘Governance’

The Acting CEO tells us we can only use Public Question Time to ask questions about what he says is ‘the governance function of Council’.   

He sees that function as ‘policy, direction setting and decision making for the good of the community as a whole’.

That is a self-serving definition, designed to cripple any attempt by Council to oversee the actions of the CEO and through him the activities of other Shire employees.  

Followed to its logical conclusion, it means that whatever the CEO and his staff may get up to has nothing to do with the community’s representatives—our elected councillors—unless the CEO in his wisdom decides otherwise.  It puts the CEO firmly in control of the Shire’s affairs.

‘Operational and administrative matters’

What we peasants mustn’t do, according to the Acting CEO, is use PQT to ask questions about ‘operational and administrative matters’.  He says those sorts of questions must be ‘forwarded directly’ to the Acting CEO.

So who decides which questions are about ‘operational and administrative matters’ rather than ‘governance’?  I bet he thinks it’s the Acting CEO.  Again, he’s wrong.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that under the Acting CEO’s rule, questions relating to ‘operational and administrative matters’ would be most unlikely to find their way into the minutes of Council meetings. 

The implications are sinister, but clearly visible even to the untrained naked eye.  Ensuring that PQT is restricted to so-called ‘governance’ questions puts the Acting CEO in a position to hush up virtually anything he and his staff are involved in—from simple mistakes to serious issues of incompetence, corruption and maladministration—to which members of the public wish to draw attention and to have recorded in the minutes of Council meetings. 

Is what he says backed up by law?

So far as I know, there is nothing in the Local Government 1995 to justify the Acting CEO’s direction to residents. 

Nor is anything of that nature to be found in regulations made under the Act, or in Local Government Operational Guidelines 03—Managing Public Question Time, or in the Shire’s Standing Orders. 

And for good measure, according to Local Government (Administration) Regulation 1996 7(4) (a), the only questions that Council need not answer are those that don’t relate ‘to a matter affecting local government’.

I challenge the Acting CEO to prove me wrong.

Protocol for PQT

If he decides to respond to my challenge, he will almost certainly do so by falling back on the protocol for PQT adopted by Council on 21 September 2013.  A copy of that document, entitled ‘Public Question Time at Council Meetings’ was circulated with his letter of the other day.

It was adopted at the suggestion—or perhaps one should say, at the behest—of former CEO Ray Hooper.  Under the heading ‘Process’, it includes the attempted restriction of PQT to ‘governance’ questions.

The Acting CEO will no doubt argue that this ‘protocol’ is legislation enacted by the Shire Council of the day and therefore binding on residents and ratepayers.

Sorry, Graeme, that won’t wash.  The legislative powers of Council derive from statute—in this instance, the Local Government Act. In its own legislation, Council cannot go further than is authorised by statute.

The Acting CEO’s proposed restriction on question time is not authorised by statute.   In fact, it is demonstrably unlawful. 

What the Department’s experts say

This is not just my opinion.  It is also the opinion of the Department of Local Government and Communities, as expressed by two of its senior officers, Ms Jenni Law (currently acting as a mentor to our present Council) and Mr. Stuart Fraser, Principal Advisory Officer.

When Ray Hooper first tried to introduce the restriction some years ago, during the reign of Shire President Pat Hooper, Ms Law made it clear to Council that members of the public can use PQT to ask questions relating to any local government matter. 

And Mr. Fraser, in an email to a friend of mine, explained that decisions to exclude questions are the prerogative of the person presiding over a council meeting—that is, in York’s case, the shire president or another councillor acting in his place. 

It is not for the CEO to decide what questions can be asked.

Democracy under threat—again

So—good try, Graeme, but all you’ve succeeded in doing (not for the first time) is making a bloody fool of yourself and drawing down upon shire staff the suspicion that some of them, past and present, are or have been up to no good.

No shire president worth his salt will allow a CEO, acting or otherwise, to trample down the democratic foundations of local government in Western Australia. 

The council’s job is to advance under law the rights and interests of the people it is elected to serve.  The CEO’s job is to advise and inform council; to implement under law the decisions of council; to appoint other employees; to make sure those employees do properly what they are paid to do and sack them if they don’t.

In essence, that’s all there is to it.  Not rocket science, is it, Graeme? 

If the Acting CEO requires further instruction, I recommend my blog post of 9 September: ‘Who’s Really in Charge of Local Government—the Elected Council or the Staff?’  Happy reading, Graeme!

Time for a thorough springclean

Meanwhile, the rest of us need to impress on the Acting CEO that we will not put up with his stale old nonsense for a moment longer.

We must insist again on a full, detailed, expert and independent investigation into every allegation of corruption and bureaucratic misfeasance in the Shire going back over the last ten years. 

This should include issues of nepotism and patronage as defined in the Local Government Act.  Every staff appointment during that period should be reviewed to ensure it meets with the requirements of merit and equity.  So far as possible, every contract awarded, every item of credit card expenditure, every sale and purchase of property, the exercise of every staff privilege, should be scrutinised by expert investigators for evidence of financial wrongdoing.  Every council decision and executive action should be scrutinised for evidence of favouritism or malice.

It’s time to springclean and start afresh.  It will be painful, but if we don’t have the courage to take that step nothing will really go right for the Shire of York.

Written, authorised and published by James Plumridge, 14 Harriott Street, York

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About tomorrow’s Council meeting…

Issues surrounding PQT are very likely to get an energetic airing at tomorrow’s Council meeting to be held at 5 pm in the Lesser Hall (this month, the meeting is being held a week early). 

Please make every effort to attend.  The cause of reform needs your vigorous support.