Mayor of Newtown, Cllr Richard Williams brought a motion for debate at the last full council meeting held in November. The motion titled “Role, Engagement, Accountability, Transparency, and Access to Information regarding Council & Councillors” was presented and opportunity for comments and questions was given.
“I am delighted that the Council has approved my motion relating to the transparency and accessibility of the Town Council and councillors. The improvements to our website will hopefully enable the public to explore more of the data we already hold relating to attendance, payments and declarations of interest of individual councillors.” said Cllr Richard Williams, who also went on to comment “The Council has also endorsed an awareness campaign to educate and inform the public about the role and powers of the Town Council as we lead up to the local government elections in May 2022 and I look forward to working with the wider public to highlight the facts about how much we spend, collect via the Council Tax and what we’re responsible for”.
Newtown & Llanllwchaiarn Town Council resolved that:
- Council will publish all notices and summons on MLTC social media sites
- Council will publish on each councillor profile page on the NLTC website, information based on each municipal year between the period of local government elections relating to:
- councillors meeting attendance record
- councillors training record
- list of lead councillor projects or responsibilities
- councillors outside body appointments
- councillors register of declarations of interests
- payments to members
- Council authorises the Mayor in his role as Chair of Council and officers to work to carry out a campaign to highlight the role and powers of Newtown & Llanllwchaiarn Town Council in the run up to the next election in May 2022.
- Council will further explore the cost of providing an information sheet to be attached to the annual council tax demand notice issued by the billing authority and authorises Resources Committee to make a final decision in relation to design and cost.
- Council allocates oversight and monitoring of the implementation of this motion to the Resources Committee.
- Council allocates sufficient budget and staff resources to the new undertakings above after taking advice of the Town Clerk and authorises the Town Clerk to spend up to the budget limits and to re-allocate existing staff resources accordingly without further reference to Committee.
