Following a public meeting with the police on Anti-Social behaviour in East Chesterton, Cambridge on the 2nd of April 2008 I requested a copy of the minutes from the council’s ASB section – they invited attendees to do this at the meeting.

Two months after my original request, and following a number of emails to chase it up I today received as response from council officer Alastair Roberts, he wrote:

The usual practice is to make these available to residents on the evening of the next meeting which, in this case, was held on 9th June 2008. I understand that you did not attend this meeting and, as a result, did not receive a copy.

As this is a meeting for local residents discussing localised issues I can see no reason for making them more widely available. We will not, therefore, be putting them onto the Council’s website. As they are publically available there is also no need for anyone to make a FOI request in order to receive a copy.

My reply is reproduced below:
Mr Roberts,

Many thanks for sending me the document which I requested.

I note I did not copy the freedom of information officer until my request to the council’s Anti-Social Behaviour section had been unsuccessful. I agree with you that there ought be no need to make an FOI request to receive a copy of these minutes (and those of similar meetings, serviced by council officers, around the city).

I did not attend the meeting because I was told I was not permitted to attend by the chair, when she spoke at the April North Area committee meeting. She stated this was on the grounds of supposed anti-police comments I had made at the meeting. You will see from the minutes you have just supplied me with, no such comments were made. I had suggested the PCSO ought to take notes, especially if as he claimed he was going to take forward some of what was being said to use in making cases for locating CCTV cameras. I am actively lobbying my councillors to withdraw City Council support for these meetings if they are not open to the public, I have also written to the ASB section to express this point of view.

I welcome the most recent Neighbourhood Profile from the Police as presented to the April North Area Committee which included for the first time, albeit nominally, input from meetings such as the East Chesterton ASB meeting and other similar meetings. What I have not been able to find out is how the comments made at the meeting reached those writing the Neighbourhood Profile. I think it would be very valuable if the path comments from these meetings take to the Area Committees where policing priorities are agreed, and where the police are held to account for meeting those priorities was publicised and improved. While it didn’t make the minutes you have just supplied me with I suggested this at the East Chesterton ASB meeting, suggesting councillors could play a role.

I was surprised when I received the minutes to see that despite the councillors sitting with the public at the meeting, and not introducing themselves as they arrived they are listed at the top of the meeting with the chair, council officers, PCSO and other named attendees.

I disagree that the local nature of this meeting is a reason not to make the minutes (or even meeting announcements) available publicly online. You can see from the minutes 16 residents attended the meeting, many thousands of residents of East Chesterton did not attend – what better method is there than the council’s website for disseminating information on what was discussed to those who did not attend. Open online publication would I believe also aid transparency, this is more important now as of the April Neighbourhood profile these meetings are being used to create the profile and come up with the recommended police priorities, as such this meeting affects all those who find themselves in the North of Cambridge. Another reason for publicising these minutes would be to enable the electorate to see what their councillors get up to. It didn’t make the minutes, but at the meeting County Councillor Julian Huppert stated : “We have no democratic control over the police in the UK”, if it had been minuted it would have made it easier to publicise comments such as that, which I see as quite shocking, more widely with more credibility than I can do at the moment.

If these minutes had been available prior to the last North Area committee it would perhaps have been possible to question the police Inspector more rigorously about the lack of police manpower in East Chesterton. As it was he was able to claim there was no problem, these minutes, had they been made available either to councillors or members of the public could have been used to more strongly make the point that even his own PCSO was aware that the policing levels in East Chesterton were 50% of what they should have been. As it was the strongest language a councillor is minuted as using is that there was a “perceived drop in Police presence in the East Chesterton area.” Had these minutes been available to quote from I believe the police would have been more effectively held to account.

I urge you to reconsider:
1. Making these and similar minutes available online, and perhaps actively sending them to councillors or including them in the papers for the area committees where they are to discuss police priorities.
2. Ensuring these meetings, where they are supported by council officers are public meetings.

Richard Taylor.