“‘PUBLIC-excluded meeting’ is a grossly misunderstood term,” says Wellington City Deputy Mayor Ian McKinnon.
Last week an article in Capital Times questioned the need for the Audit and Risk Subcommittee’s council debtor’s report to exclude the public.
But McKinnon says there are valid and lawful reasons to have meetings “in camera” the old term for public excluded, where discussion is restricted to and decisions voted on only in the presence of the particular committee.
“I don’t think one should assume there’s anything underhand in a committee going into public excluded,” he says. “I couldn’t agree more that public organisations have got to be transparent and accountable to the public, but from time to time it is more appropriate to go public excluded.”
When considering a private meeting, McKinnon abides by an informal test, “is this necessary?” and a formal test, “are you doing it in accordance with the Local Government Act?”
For example, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) provides reasons such as to protect the privacy of individuals and to enable authorities to carry out negotiations without prejudice or disadvantage (like trying to secure a contract for the Rugby 7s).
McKinnon says only a small minority of council meetings are public-excluded, but the Audit and Risk Subcommittee has a higher occurrence due to the sensitivity of information.
Capital Times reported last week that security at the recent public-excluded Audit and Risk Subcommittee meeting had been tightened after a spate of leaks to media.
After the story went to print, Capital Times received calls from people naming the same high profile alleged rates debtor.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean confirmed the format of reports presented to members had now changed. Instead of the usual list of debtors, names were taken off the red paper.
“From an officer’s point of view, if there is information at the council getting out into the public that is damaging to anyone’s interest, we’ll do our damndest to find these leaks,” he says. “It’s unhealthy for the whole town and can destroy a lot of people, and cost us a lot of money.”
McKinnon adds that as the meeting needs to be voted to go into public excluded by all present, he’d find it contradictory if someone then leaked private information. “I’d be very disappointed.”
As of February 2010 the council was owed $12.1 million. Of this, $6.69 million was rates arrears.

The public-excluded statistics:
2005: 9     2006: 15    2007: 11     2008: 25      2009: 23
* These 83 workshops were in contrast to the 434 council meetings such as SPC and Audit and Risk held since 2005. Some of these have been public excluded for part of the meetings, but there are no statistics.