BRADFORD Council will re-start meetings next week - with Councillors communicating remotely.

However, one Councillor has raised concerns that the set up of the new meetings could make it difficult for some decisions to be given full scrutiny.

Due to the nationwide lockdown, the last official Council meeting was held on March 24, when the decision making Executive board met via teleconference.

The public were not able to listen in to that meeting - although the decisions made by the Executive were published the following day.

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Now the Council has announced that it will be re-starting its meetings - with an Executive meeting taking place online on Thursday April 30.

Since the Coronavirus lockdown placed limits on public gatherings, local authorities have had to look to technology to keep the decision making process going, while still satisfying the requirement for Council meetings to be held in public.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority held its first virtual meeting last week, where members of five local Council's discussed the Covid 19 response and West Yorkshire devolution.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Lib Dems in Bradford, criticised the Council's plans for online meetings, saying they needed to be amended for the full democratic process to work. She said: "Big decisions that can profoundly impact on the future of people living in the district must be open to scrutiny and call-in.

"The Council is behaving as if it just needs to change the way it operates for a couple of meetings, as if it just needs to take a couple of decisions and then everything will be back to normal.

"We believe that the Council must find a new way to operate business as usual before lack of accountability and behind muted microphones becomes the way business in Bradford is conducted in the months ahead. It is not sufficient for Councillors to read reports and maybe be able to hear a discussion. All decisions must be open to scrutiny."

Bradford Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: "It’s vitally important that meetings get up and running as quickly as possible. That’s not to say that councillors have not been sighted on what’s been going on. On the contrary the Council’s political Executive has been meeting every other day by phone and video, and we’ve made sure that the Chair of Health Scrutiny has also had the opportunity to ask questions about the decisions the health system is making. The Chair of Health Scrutiny has also been providing regular updates to the members of that committee, which includes Cllr Sunderland.

“On top of this I also send a daily update seven days a week to all 90 councillors on the decisions of that day so they are sighted on them and have been kept abreast of key developments throughout.”

Parveen Akhtar, City Solicitor, said: “It is the Council’s intention to enable all its bodies to meet virtually (including a Scrutiny process) and procedure papers have been drafted to this effect.

"An IT solution to facilitate virtual meetings has been developed and an Executive meeting will be held on April 30 using the new technology. Meetings of other bodies (including scrutiny will follow). Before any meetings take place, the IT system will be further tested and comprehensive training provided to Chairs on how to use it. All councils throughout the country are grappling with the same issue and challenges.”