‘There was not much time for scrutiny’

AFTER the meeting, Cllr Carl Doran said there wasn’t much scrutiny and the committee debate time had been scrapped.

He told Wokingham.Today: “We’re given the running order, and the section before voting was for deliberation. That’s time for the committee to sit and chat among themselves about it. But it was missed out.

“We had reached three hours by that point, I don’t think the scrutinising was done.”

In the meeting, Cllr John Kaiser, executive member for finance told Cllr Doran the agenda item for July was an issue of semantics.

He said last month’s decision was for funding allocation and next month’s decision would be for a solution to the wet waste problem.

“I assumed going into this that the decision was about buying the sacks,” said Cllr Doran. ”But what became clear from Cllr Kaiser was that the decision was to put aside some money for a solution that had not been decided.

“In July, the executive voted to approve funding for the purchase of the sacks. If the committee went for a different choice in September, would they have the money to spend?

“Because that money has been set aside for the sacks, not the lids or covers.”

Cllr Doran said he thinks the September meeting will be a formality, and the decision to choose sacks will be made then.

He added: “I can’t see why the whole decision wasn’t made in one go. Or why the executive last month didn’t allocate funding for a solution to the wet waste problem, rather than bags specifically.”