Bradford & District | Archive | 2007 | September | 4

Wharfedale councillor urges public to attend meetings

From the archive, first published Tuesday 4th Sep 2007.

A WHARFEDALE councillor is calling for more people to attend council meetings to make sure the actions of public bodies are properly scrutinised.

Councillor Matt Palmer (Con) is chairman of the corporate improvement committee. He said he wanted to encourage people to go along to meetings.

He said: "All of the committees have prepared challenging and exciting work programmes which will play an important part in helping the Council to perform even better.

"But the public can help us in two ways. Their views are vital on everything we examine. People can help us make sure that our examination is looking at what they really need and is not driven by the bureaucracy. And even more importantly they can tell us what is missing from our programme and what is really important to them."

Bradford Council's seven improvement committees are responsible for examining a wide range of issues in detail to help the council's Executive address the needs of the district. The Committees look at issues such as education, environment, safer and stronger communities, regeneration, social care, health and improvement as well as corporate matters.

Major items the improvement committees will look at next year include:

l Ensuring regeneration programmes take account of the need to respond to climate change.

l Concluding a major study of primary school education.

l How quickly emergency services such as the police and the ambulance service respond to calls.

l How the skills of people across the district can be improved to give them a better chance of getting good, well-paid jobs.

Coun Palmer added: "All of our committee meetings are open to the public and anyone is very welcome to attend. We usually meet in City Hall, but if we are considering an issue that is relevant to a particular locality, we will make sure the meeting is held at a venue that makes it easy for local people to attend."

Details of all committee meetings can be found on the council's website at www.bradford.gov.uk/scrutiny and people can email any comments they may have to scrutiny@bradford.gov.uk.

Or, if people prefer to discuss any matter concerning the work of the committees, they can call (01274) 434565.