THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 1948. North Auckland Power Board Procedure

Northern Advocate, 10 January 1948, Page 2

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 1948. North Auckland Power Board Procedure

The North Auckland Power Board has decided (o seek the opinion of the Power Boards Association’s solicitor as to whether it has or has not followed an illegal system of procedure up to the present time. This decision was made at the meeting of the board held at Dargavillo on Thursday, when Mr J. A. S. Mac Kay, a consistent opponent of the existing piocedure ot Ibc board, moved that the powers al present vested in the finance committee by resolution of tne board to deal w.itn

the board’s business oe withdrawn and that only matters referred to it by resolution of the board be dealt with by the finance committee. Mr Mac Kay contended that the board’s procedure was illegal, but the discussion was ended by the adoption of a motion to obtain the opinion of the association’s solicitor before further action was taken. The discussion which took place on Thursday covered ground with which our readers will be familiar, this matter having been before the board on numerous occasions, but it is interesting to recall the features of a practice which in some respects is unique.

The board has set up a finance committee consisting of all the members of the board. Before the board meets as a board it sits as a finance committee and deals with the board’s business in camera.

The finance committee is presented with an agenda separate from that supplied to members when they sit as a board later in the day. The resolutions adopted in committee are approved by the board in open meeting without the business done in committee being disclosed. Mr Mac Kay contends that the board has acted illegally and in defiance of standing orders by invest-

inf; the finance committee with power to do in camera what should be done by the members in open council assembled. Supporters of the practice contend, on the other hand, that the greater volume of business transacted by the finance committee is more or less of a routine character, big matters of policy being dealt with in open board. Whether the svstem followed by the board be legal or illegal, it is difficult to understand why it should have been adopted, for it necessarily deprives the public of information to which it may rightly consider itself entitled. Granted that the board has made a striking financial success of its undertaking, there is nevertheless good reason why the consumers of power should know what their representatives contributed to decisions made in committee.

V/hile a good deal is to be said for the system by which local bodies relegate business to appropriate committees, which shortens open meetings, for the possibility of reaching a wide audience per medium of Press reports undoubtedly induces loquacity on the part of some speakers, it is nevertheless a fact that the people should be given much more information than is to be obtained from bare recital of resolutions in committee.

The North Auckland Power Boai d has gone further than the average local body has gone, for its constitution of all the members as committeemen pledged to secrecy prevents them', as members of the board, from ventilating points of view they may have taken in committee. If, as is contended, the bulk of the business done in committee is of a routine nature, little harm, could surely be committed if it were dealt with in open board, though it will not be seriously suggested that business dealings between a consumer and the board, for instance, should be deprived the privacy which attaches to everyday business transactions.