Response from Assistant Chief Executive
A letter from the Assistant Chief Executive, Ms Bindu Arjoon, on an Exeter City Council heading dated 1st December 2010 was received on 4th December, being the response of the Chief Executive to my letter of 23rd November.
The text below was obtained by OCR and has been suitably formatted for the website. There are no alterations.
Dear Mr Harle,
Exeter City Council Style Democracy
Your letter dated 25 November sent by email to the council's Chief Executive has been passed to me for a response.
Whilst your letter refers to the Summerway Junior Lawn Tennis Club and the subsequent Summerway Campaign, your issue seems to primarily relate to you not being able to attend the meeting of the Executive that took place on 23 November.
I am sorry that you were disappointed at not being able to attend the meeting and listen to the discussions amongst elected members. The council's intention in limiting public access to the room was to ensure the comfort, health and safety of members of the public attending the meeting.
You are correct that we would usually take members of the public through to the committee rooms five minutes before the start of the meeting. However because of the greater numbers involved on this occasion; we began to admit members of the public to the room from 5:15pm so that all attendees were seated prior to the commencement of the meeting at 5:30pm, to avoid disruption to the meeting or take the risk of members of the public missing the start of the item.
As you will no doubt be aware, minutes of the meeting are produced and available to the public via the council's website, although as these are not a verbatim record of the meeting, I accept that you will not have had access to the same level of discussion and debate that you would have had if you had been able to attend the meeting.
I cannot agree with your assertion that "the bureaucracy rather than democracy appear to be making decisions." Officers of the council make recommendations for decisions to elected members, based on legislative requirements, locally agreed strategies and policies and their technical expertise. However, it is ultimately for elected members make the decisions of the council.
I trust this addresses your concerns and again I apologise that you were not able to attend the meeting.
Yours sincerely
Bindu Arjoon
Assistant Chief Executive