The Chief Ombudsman has reprimanded Marlborough District Council’s use of public-excluded briefings and workshops, saying they should be “open by default”.
It comes two years after councils were given a dressing-down for holding workshops behind closed doors too often and for invalid reasons.
However, Marlborough’s council boss maintains they are well within the law and it’s important to discuss complex information without scrutiny.
Chief Ombudsman John Allen made his critiques in his official opinion on the council’s compliance with the Local Government Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA), which was presented to councillors on August 4.
All councillor briefings and workshops, which were held to inform councillors about complex regional issues, were automatically public-excluded.
Allen said the council had “acted unreasonably” in their lack of record keeping, and he believed all workshops and briefings should be open to the public by default.
“We understand that there may be occasion to partially or fully close specific briefings and workshops.
“However, our view is that councils should start from a position of ‘open by default’, then consider whether proceedings may need to be closed on a case-by-case basis.
“Elected members are accountable to the public, and must be prepared to submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”
Allen’s opinion saida schedule for these briefings was presented at a public council meeting each year but they were not easy to find.
“It took some time to find the exact council meeting where the yearly schedules were included,” he said.
“We consider it would be difficult for a member of the public to find information on briefings by carrying out a similar search.”
The yearly schedule did not capture the subject matter of the briefings or take into account any changes in time or location, he said.
Only a fraction of briefings were officially scheduled. A significant number were considered unofficial, being arranged “on an ad-hoc basis depending on subject to inform them on specific issues”.
Unofficial briefings did not have recorded minutes, and often attendance was not taken.
The Marlborough District Council held 81 briefings and workshops over this council’s three-year term, and only 46 took official attendance records, a LGOIMA response said.
Allen said the public would benefit from receiving the same information as councillors, giving them a greater understanding of the decisions made by their elected members.
Contentious issue
Public-excluded meetings had been a contentious topic around the council table.
Former councillor Jaime Arbuckle had long opposed public-excluded briefings, once boycotting them for nine months in protest.
He told Local Democracy Reporting in 2023 that he felt uncomfortable that many meetings did not take place in public.
“We get information in workshops, then we come to a public discussion in an agenda item where we’ve been given knowledge the media hasn’t been given, or the public hasn’t been given,” Arbuckle said.
Council responds
Council chief executive John Boswell said that the council’s use of public-excluded was well within scope under LGOIMA.
“We are continuing to operate in accordance with the law,” Boswell said.
“That is [the Ombudsman’s] own individual opinion and interpretation of how he thinks things should be ultimately conducted.”
Boswell said that public-excluded briefings allowed councillors to come to grips with complex information without scrutiny.
“We provide the councillors with an environment where they’re comfortable to explore, in their own way, the information that they’ve been presented … [and] clarification of those points for which they’re unsure,” Boswell said.
“We do everything we can to assist them to make informed decisions at the right time and in the right forum.”
Boswell said briefings were strictly limited to sharing information.
“[I can] categorically confirm… there are absolutely no decisions made in workshops or briefings,” he said.
“Ninety-two per cent of reports that come to council are dealt with in open meetings.”
Boswell said he would be taking Allen’s recommendations under consideration and a paper outlining options for the future of briefings and workshops would be presented to the new council post-election.
By Kira Carrington, Local Democracy Reporter
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
