Council Chaos as Opposition is Gagged

4.12.59pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 10th Sep 2007

The County Council was today thrown into chaos when the agenda for the full Council meeting tomorrow - duly published a week ago as required for public access - was completely overturned.

It had been agreed a month ago that Council would tomorrow spend the morning debating the important Sustainable Communities Strategy that is being developed by the Oxfordshire Partnership, a partnership of public authorities and organisations that together deliver public services to the people of Oxfordshire. It was understood that the usual Council business - public speeches and question time, and questions and motions from Councillors - would occur as normal in the afternoon. Councillors were asked to be restrained in putting forward motions, and asked to restrict themselves to urgent matters. Three Liberal Democrat Councillors and one Labour Councillor duly submitted motions for debate, and 10 questions from Councillors of all groups were also submitted.

These motions were then printed on the published agenda for Council, and politicians prepared to discuss them.

In a radical and totally unexpected move, it was this morning declared that the four motions submitted were not "urgent enough" and would not be taken at the Council meeting tomorrow. It was not clear whether there would be time for questions either. The three motions from the Liberal Democrats were:

• on flooding - an issue at the forefront of everyone's mind and one where residents are demanding to know what actions are being taken by public authorities to combat similar flooding in the future;

• on weeds - where weed growth throughout the summer is cracking pavements and roads, and, if left, would continue to cause damage that will be costly to repair; and

• on social care funding - at a time when the County Council is about to start its budget process; at the next Council in November, the process will be well under way.

Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Zoé Patrick said, "I find it extraordinary that these motions are now not to be debated. We had genuine reasons for wishing all three of them to be discussed tomorrow, rather than deferred until November. We do think that they are timely, and urgent enough for the people affected by all three issues. I can well imagine people's reaction when I am asked what the Council is doing about flooding and will have to say they must wait for November until their elected representatives are allowed to discuss it! In contrast, the opposition at the Vale of White Horse District Council are allowed to call a special Council meeting on flooding, whilst on the County the opposition appear not allowed even a motion on it!

"We had spent a long time doing research and discussing the ideas for these motions. The other groups clearly also spent some time looking at them, as all three attracted suggested amendments from the Conservative group. To be told at the last minute, today, that they must be deferred shows the pretence of democracy at County Hall up for what it really is - a total washing over of backbench and opposition councillors' views."

"The other odd factor is that the Tory-led Scrutiny Co-ordinating Committee - which decides on issues to review - decided there would not be a scrutiny review on flooding as we were waiting for council feedback on the matter. However, in an about-turn this morning we discovered that our motion on flooding instead of being considered by Cabinet, will now become part of a scrutiny review. So it seems that this council says one thing and then just goes ahead and does something completely different. Is this democracy in action?"