Council and Committee Meetings in County Boroughs
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1954.tb01215.x |
| Date | 01 December 1954 |
| Published date | 01 December 1954 |
Council
and
Committee
Meetings
in
-
County
Boroughs
BOUT a year ago concern was express’ed by Labour members of the
A
Oxford City Council that the difficulty of finding suitable candidates was
increased because meetings of the full Council and of all its Committees were
held during normal working hours. The Council meets fortnightly at
10.30 a.m. and the Committees meet mornings and afternoons. The question
was referred to the Selection Committee of the Council who asked the Town
Clerk to ascertain the practice in other County Boroughs. Through the
courtesy of Mr. Harry Plowman, C.B.E., Town Clerk of Oxford, and of the
Town Clerks who supplied information, the following analysis can be pre-
sented to readers
of
this journal. The information was supplied in May or
June,
1953,
and therefore changes may have taken place in the practice of
particular County Boroughs since that date.
There are
83
County Boroughs and information was provided by the
Town Clerks of
76
(including Oxford).
Council Meetings
Frequency
Oxford was the only County Borough whose Council normally met more
frequently than once a month. In others the normal practice
is
to meet
monthly but nearly a third had a holiday recess in August. Three Councils
also did not meet in July. On the other hand, several Councils had an extra
meeting, for example, Manchester had an extra meeting in February to deal
with the Annual Estimates and Liverpool and Salford had extra meetings in
April and May respectively and in July to offset the absence of meetings in
June and August.
As
a general rule County Borough Councils meet
12
times
a year, a minority meet
11
times and Oxford meets on 20 occasions.
Duration
The normal average duration of Council meetings seems to be about
2-24
hours-nearly half the replies fell within this range. If the range is
widened to 1;-3 hours’ duration,
52
of the
76
would be covered. At the
extremes Merthyr Tydfil, Rotherham, Wakefield, West Ham and Wigan
appear to have been able to complete their business in less than one hour on
the average occasion, whereas Gloucester took
6
hours or more and Brighton,
Hastings and Southend averaged about
5
hours. (The last four cases, however,
presumably included time for some form of refreshment.) Clearly, size is not
the main reason for these big differences. True, Birmingham City Council
meetings usually lasted 4-6 hours, Liverpool 3-4 hours and Manchester about
4
hours, and it is noticeable that a number of the big towns, e.g., Bradford
and Sheffield, fell into the average three-hour group. But Gloucester and
Hastings have smaller populations than West Ham and Wigan and here the
difference must be in the attitude of the majority of the Councillors to the
scope and method of Council work. One suspects that in strongly organised
Labour-controlled Councils discussion in Council is regarded as rather a
waste of time, the party line having been decided beforehand.
429
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