THURROCK councillors have been told to behave themselves and refrain from ‘embarrassing’ outbursts at full council meetings.
Lynn Worrall, deputy leader of the council and councillor responsible for change and improvement, spoke out at a corporate overview and scrutiny committee meeting after giving an update on the council progress since being placed under the scrutiny of Government appointed commissioners.
Without giving specific incidents, Ms Worrall said bad behaviour during full council meetings towards other councillors and council officers would not impress commissioners when producing their next report.
Speaking at the meeting on Tuesday, Ms Worrall said: “We do need a culture change. As 49 councillors, when we get elected you sign that register to say that you take on a duty to the community. You are no longer a resident that can write what they want and say what they want.
“Far too often, officers who have no rights of reply are targeted and emailed and it’s not acceptable. As leading councillors we need to step up and say that’s not acceptable in this chamber. We are not coming out of intervention all the time we cannot behave ourselves.”
Ms Worrall added: “We’ve done some phenomenal work. But it’s an embarrassment. I don’t want to sit here and listen to that. The officers can’t respond.”
It came as it emerged the Labour administration was mulling reducing the number of full council meetings in the next municipal year with members invited to attend more cabinet meetings where they could ask questions but take no part in the decision making.
Ben Maney, chairman of the committee, said: “There is a feeling that we keep talking about transparency but some members are beginning to feel that there is a creeping lack of transparency.
“We now know that there is a proposal to hold less full councils in the new municipal year. We know conversations are ongoing and no decisions have been made but there is no meeting of this council that is more important than full council.”
Mr Maney added: “It’s not okay to hold less and less meetings where members can turn up and vote by saying we’re having more talking shops where people can ask more questions.”
James Halden, Conservative councillor for The Homesteads, blamed the introduction of video recording of meetings for encouraging “grandstanding” from some councillors. He said: “Quite clearly there’s been a conversation in the administration between cabinet and officers regarding what you do about the minority of council outbursts from certain members that paints us all in a bad light.
