Haringey’s Lib Dems councillors have requested Haringey Council investigate its use of the ‘urgent business’ rule in deciding controversial decisions by the Labour Executive. The request come after Lib Dem councillors expressed concern that almost £1.5 million of local tax-payers money had allocated through two ’emergency’ decisions made in recent days- both of which were made behind closed doors.

The two decisions were the payment of almost £400,000 to travellers to leave the site on the Heartlands and the decision made to allow the Ally Pally Board an extra £1m to pay contractors handling the Alexandra Palace sell-off.

Under Haringey Council’s constitution (Section I.3, page 3) urgent business cannot be called-in for scrutiny. As a consequence the decision of both these issues were discussed and decided behind closed doors, excluding the Lib Dem opposition and local residents, and will not face a scrutiny panel.

This was no more clearly demonstrated than this week (13th October) when an attempt to call-in the decision on Alexandra Palace by Cllr Bob Hare was accepted by the Haringey as his reasons were legitimate and justified.However, hours later it was thrown out due to the constitution’s stance on ‘urgent business’ call-ins.

The Leader of the Council’s official opposition, Cllr Neil Williams, says that efforts by the Lib Dems to hold Haringey Council to account are being scuppered by the Labour administration’s manipulation of the rules. He says that action needs to be taken so that the residents in Haringey can see open and accountable democracy taking place.

Cllr Williams (Highgate ward) comments:

“The Council’s worrying trend of forcing through policy as ‘urgent business’ must be addressed quickly.

“This months ‘urgent business’ regarding Ally Pally was urgent because of a failure by the Board to account for this large cost. If the Labour council is allowed to used this loophole in this way then the Council couldto leave many decisions until the last minute to avoid being held to account.

“We are calling for the Council to investigate this over-use of urgency powers by the Labour leadership.”