Lib Dems call for Openness and Transparency

At the Council meeting on 23 March, the Lib Dems called for changes to make Surrey County Council more open and transparent, for the benefit of Surrey residents.

Lib Dem Leader Cllr Hazel Watson said: "Openness and transparency are essential requirements for a democratic organisation such as the County Council. Members of the public need to access information about services provided by the Council and the decisions made by the Council that affect them. I believe that much more must be done to make the County Council more open and transparent for the benefit of Surrey residents."

In a Joint Neighbourhood survey carried out during 2009/10 only 56% of Surrey residents responded that the County Council keeps people informed. Also, the County Council has received a large number of requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act totalling 1308 in 2009/10 and the number of such requests has increased by almost two thirds in three years from 805 requests in 2006/7.

Cllr Watson said: "The fact that so many Surrey residents are saying that they are not kept informed by the County Council and need to resort to Freedom of Information Act requests in order to obtain information from the Council suggests that the information they need is not readily available. The County Council could and should be made more open and transparent by implementing six changes that would open up the Council to Surrey residents."

The six improvements proposed by the Liberal Democrats to improve the openness and transparency of the County Council were:

• The Council should allow the public to present petitions and ask questions at full Council which many other councils across the country already allow. This would enable Surrey residents to bring significant issues to the attention of the supreme decision-making body of the council so that those issues can be addressed and services improved.
• The Council should ensure that consultation documents intended for the public are in plain English and are readily available to Surrey residents so that the Council obtains as much feedback as possible from the residents that it serves.
• Decisions made by the Council and the reasons for them should be publicly available so that Surrey residents can understand who has made a decision, why it has been made and so that they can check that it has been made fairly.
• Complaints made by the public should be responded to by the Council within the Council's set time-scales that are currently not always being met by some services such as Social Services and the Education Service.
• Scrutiny should be made more effective and should be independent of the Cabinet, so that the Council's performance can be thoroughly examined with a view to improving services provided to residents.
• Information about the County Council and its services should be more accessible to the public so that fewer residents need to resort to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Cllr Watson concluded: "If these improvements were implemented by the County Council, Surrey residents would be better informed about the services that the Council provides, about the reasons for decisions and the Council's performance. It would also mean that they would have more say and more influence over decisions that affect them."