Is democracy about to die a little in Woking?

I am very concerned to have learned in the last few days that Woking Conservatives want to change Woking Borough's constitution and take over the chair of the Overview and Scrutiny committee.  

As the ruling party the Conservatives already chair all the other committees. This is the one committee that is run by the opposition and allows the smaller parties to review the operation of the Council and be consulted on important matters.

Back in 2000 Woking Council started running under the Executive model. This means that our local Council is run by a Leader and his/her appointed Executive. The actions of the Leader and Executive are scrutinised by an Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Originally there were three scrutiny committees covering environment, economic and social issues. This was revised to a single committee on the recommendation of a cross party working group. A key principle was for the committee to be chaired by an opposition member.

This important function of the Council has done much good work over the years.  Call-ins have raised key issues affecting the council, national service providers such as Royal Mail and South West Trains have answered residents's concerns in the chamber, problems with the planning system have been highlighted and councillors have investigated service provision in the borough.

Now Woking Conservatives want to take over the chair of this committee.  This is in addition to chairing the Executive and all other council committees The group that controls the Council wants to chair the committee that scrutinises them as well. 

Democracy could die a little in Woking if this goes ahead.

Research shows that most councils, even where there is a small opposition, allow other parties to run the scrutiny role.  Woking Conservatives have 23 seats.  Lib Dems have 11 and there is 1 Labour and 1 Independent councillor. More than a third of council seats are held by opposition parties.  57% of residents did not vote for the Conservatives in the recent local elections.  Why should one party control the Council and not subject itself to external scrutiny.

The meeting at which the Conservative group is threatening democracy in Woking takes place at 7pm tonight (Monday 9 June).  You can go along and watch the meeting in the council chamber or you can watch it live from your PC or tablet on this link.