Hidden Members, Hidden Words

This is public engagement circa 2015, one for connoiseurs of democracy and its cohabitant transparency.

One must feel sorry for them. Those who feebly go along with an anti-transparency agenda because they are afraid their decisions will be exposed for what they are - almost certainly flawed. Do they hunch their shoulders and pull up the lapels of their coats as they join their fellow skulkers at whatever undisclosed venue has been chosen? Are the blinds drawn and lights suitably dimmed?

That's assuming that they exist at all which we might well doubt. "They" are the members of the Blacka Moor Conservation Group, a wholly secret organisation about whom we in the plebeian lower orders have no right to hold any information.

Just to recap: there was once a Reserve Advisory Group for Blacka (RAG), a pretty unsatisfactory affair hated by the managers who wished they didn't have to attend its meetings. For the public there was just one merit but a key one: the meetings were held in public, therefore transparent. Meetings continued over more than ten years and anyone could attend. In the context of our desultory council this was the closest we could come to hold management to account. This year SRWT with the connivance of officers of Sheffield City Council agreed, without consultating RAG members, that the RAG would be abolished and replaced  by a selected Conservation Group meeting in secret. Why is that? The answer is fear. The managers at SRWT are incapable of living with the expression of alternative views to those handed down by their own head office. Might it be that it could undermine staff morale?

Which is to say that this selected and approved Conservation Group, the main interface between SRWT and the public as sanctioned by Sheffield City Council now has to meet four times a year. The unapproved and unwashed lower orders have been thrown the public engagement crumb of two walkabouts - at which notoriously but conveniently words spoken disappear into the wind and rain while restless attenders fidget with the midges. A strong representation has obtained a concession that a meeting will be held for 'users' indoor but not until well into next year some three and a half years after the last RAG.

We should not be surprised then that a request for details of the Conservation Group meetings has been declined. The people attending are anonymous. We are not to be told who or how many. Topics discussed are not disclosed and minutes are not to be made available. Presumably an agreement was concluded with council officers to the effect that they, SRWT, would not be obliged to publish details therefore, what a surprise, they won't.

So how can we be sure that those meeting are at all qualified to have a say? I've been told they just have to agree with the management plan. I wonder how many have read it. What is the constitution of this secret society? Questions, questions.

So much for public engagement. So much for transparency. So much for accountability. This is public land. This is a so-called advanced democratic country. Our council was telling us not long ago that they were committed to community empowerment and  putting the public "in the driving seat".

Well done to you all.