Councillors do not scrutinise 90% of Chief Executive’s reports

All 18 city councillors were circulated with a report from Brendan McGrath on Friday, March 5.

‘Turascáil an Phriomhfheidhmeannaigh Márta’ or the Chief Executive’s Report for March was a 65-page document. It was supposed to be dealt with at the ordinary meeting of Galway City Council on March 8.

It wasn’t. Nor was it dealt with at the March 22 meeting. And it wasn’t dealt with at the Council’s April meetings, either.

The March and April meetings’ minutes will record that it was “not considered”. It will disappear from future agendas, never to see the light of day.

Who cares? Well, you should. It’s your report; your taxes funded it.

The CE is required by the Local Government Act to prepare a monthly report.

It’s a mine of information. From financial figures, to updates on projects, and an overview of the activities of and services provided by the City Council, the CE’s report is usually comprehensive.

It does contain Council spin. And its authors, the CE and his colleagues who supply the information, certainly view the world from City Hall-tinted glasses. Perhaps that’s to be expected; there are enough knockers of Galway City Council without the CE doing it too.

What’s supposed to happen is this. The CE prepares a report. It’s forwarded to elected members days before the Ordinary Monthly Meeting of the Council. It’s discussed at the meeting, and councillors can question and challenge the CE on its contents.

Media present at meetings relay the contents of the CE’s report to the public, and give a synopsis of the discussion.

It’s how local democracy works. It sounds very simple. And yet, well, it’s not. Because that is not what actually happens.

What actually happens is the manager prepares a report every month. He gives it to councillors days before it’s an agenda item at their monthly meeting. They don’t get round to discussing it. It stays on the agenda for the following meeting, when it’s not considered again. It drops off the agenda after two meetings, to be replaced by a more up-to-date monthly report that invariably is ignored too.

What happened in March 2021 was not an exception. February and March 2020 reports – both “not considered”.

The CE reports for April, May and June were “deferred”. July and September reports were “noted” but not discussed.

Reports for November, December, January, February, March and now April were also “not considered”. The CE’s report was considered at the October meeting. That’s once in the past 14 months the CE was questioned on the contents of his reports.

When asked by this newspaper to release March’s report, the CE said ‘no’. He said the reports are prepared for consideration by elected members at Council meetings.

“They are therefore not ‘published’ and in the public domain until the point at which they have been considered and debated.

“The holding back of the CE’s Monthly Report or any other report from the media or others is . . . recognition of the mandate of the elected council and the responsibility of the Executive to uphold that mandate,” he said.

Brendan McGrath’s regard for councillors’ mandate is quite touching. But when less than 10% of CE’s reports are made public, and subject to accountability and scrutiny, it makes a mockery of the democratic principles he claims to uphold.

(Photo: In the past 14 months, councillors questioned Chief Executive Brendan McGrath on the content of his monthly report just once). For more Bradley Bytes, see this week's Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.