Selby’S mayor has criticised the district council for favouring some councillors over others by offering greater access to senior officers.
Town Mayor Wendy Nichols who is also chair of the scrutiny committee said she felt the current setup of enabling members to talk to the senior officers was undemocratic after a call to reconsider a council decision was declined.
Coun Nichols claims that since the creation of Access Selby last year, the executive members of the council have had greater access to the authority’s senior officers than their colleagues, which some feel has hampered their ability to best serve their constituencies, and led eight councillors to call in the decision.
They said: “We do not consider that a two tier access to senior officers at the council is in the public interest. In effect this means that councillors in some wards have preferential access to directors of Access Selby.”
Coun Nichols said: “[the current access] means the executive get reports and better access to senior officers, but the rest of the 36 members have to go through the call centre or online.
“A number of people are particularly upset and feel it should be the same for all members.
“The concern of the people who called it in was that we would be treated at a different level to the executive and wouldn’t be able to represent our constituents with lesser access to senior officers.”
Council leader Mark Crane said: “The call in was rejected by Overview and Scrutiny simply because it was not valid.
“The document made no changes to current policy and has nothing whatsoever to do with councillors’ access to senior officers.”
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