The second meeting of Carmarthenshire County Council to be filmed and broadcast live to anyone interested will take place on 12 June, beginning at 10 a.m.
The council will no doubt make much of this experiment as evidence of its commitment to local democracy and transparency, but anyone who takes a closer look will see that this is a democracy like no other.
Take the agenda (here) which ends abruptly at point 12, "Membership of the Corporate Governance Group". Unlike any other public meeting there is no "Any Other Business".
Meetings of the full council used to have AOB as the final agenda item until a councillor rashly tried to raise a point under AOB at the back end of last year. His attempt failed, with the Chief Executive ordering that the meeting be brought to a close.
Since then AOB has been absent from the agenda, which is drawn up by the chief executive.
Although the council's standing orders make it clear that councillors may raise issues under AOB, the absence of AOB means they cannot. Only items submitted by the chief executive may be discussed, and conversely items which he does not want discussed are not allowed because there is no space for them on the agenda.
Carmarthenshire is almost certainly the only council in Britain not to have AOB on the agenda.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
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