Tuesday 8 January 2013

Wrexham Twitter ban

Carmarthenshire Council must have been training Wrexham Council in the dark arts of press control, or PR disasters perhaps. Reporters in the north Wales borough were shocked to discover today that they were banned from tweeting updates from a council meeting discussing the budget and council tax.
What on earth Wrexham Council thought they would achieve by this, other than a lot of bad press, I can't imagine.
Wrexham Council proudly, and hurriedly, produced it's Constitution where 'Standing Order 45' states that all communications with the outside world are prohibited without the express permission of the Chair. The Chair has refused permission.

You would think that any self respecting, democratic, 21st century publicly funded body would be ashamed to admit to having a Standing Order like that. That is my view of course.

Councils in Wales really need to open up. I am reminded of the words of Trawsfynydd Community Council who responded to a call for evidence for my transparency petitions, they "wished to state that the council does not agree with adopting the proposals ....the existing procedure is sufficient and has been in place since 1896" Yes, 1896.

Carmarthenshire Council have never let the little problem of not having a Standing Order like Wrexham get in their way, as we well know, and are quite content to make it all up as they go along. What makes it worse is the majority of our councillors are equally content to let them carry on....

I see the latest escapade, 'Chief Executive censors debate on press freedom', is reaching a wider audience....

2 comments:

APTSec said...

Why did the chair refuse permission I wonder? Scared of the immediacy of having a perhaps less than careful remark made in the chamber broadcast abroad? Who knows.

Anonymous said...

Some councillors have been calling for all council meetings to be transmitted live on the web for the past 2 yrs. Surprise surprise, both officers and cllrs are dead against...