At last weeks 'Cabinet' meeting, which is open to the public a request to audio record the meeting was made to the chair.

He put the request to the councillors who were present.

Only one councillor responded, Daniel Devlin who said "No".

Therefore permission was refused and we will expand on this later.

However Daniel had more to say on the matter.

"See the individuals asking fur the audio do they not understand the minutes, if not can we not get an officer to sit down and go through the minutes with them, jist to explain them."

The ERC Cabinet

Daniel Devlin, Alan Laffery, Colm Merrick, Antony Buchanan, Caroline Bamforth and Paul O'Kane.

Just goes o show how out of touch Daniel Devlin is, this is not about minutes of the meeting.

However we feel that it is incumbent upon us to enlighten him in this matter.

We have been constantly reminded by the Democratic Services Manager, Eamonn Daly that minutes are not verbatim records.

In addition minutes regularily present inaccurate information.

The minutes of the fist cabinet meeting (14 Feb 2019) where this request was made state :-

REQUEST TO RECORD PROCEEDINGS
781. The Leader intimated that a request had been received for permission to audio
record the meeting. Having given consideration to the request the Cabinet decided that permission be denied.

Having given consideration to the request the Cabinet decided that permission be denied.

What actually happened was the chair Anthony Buchanan stated that he was of the opinion that minutes were sufficient and the members of the cabinet were never asked for their opinion, the chair made the decision on his own.

The minutes of the meeting held on 14th March 2019 have not been placed onto the council web site, even though we have now had another meeting since that one. More that three weeks after that meeting we are still unaware what important decisions have been taken.

So Daniel, minutes.

They are not verbatim accounts.

They appear to contain major discrepancies of fact.

It can take months before the public is aware what decision were made.

However there is very important matter that overrides all of those.

Recording council meetings and committees is important, so that constituents not only know how their Councillor voted, but what they said.

The Scottish Government is championing Community Empowerment and a major part of that empowerment includes :-


We will be more open, more transparent, more democratic and more imaginative....................

We have never observed a clause that says (Except in East Renfrewshire)

Much more to follow.....................