THE SAGA surrounding contract details for the Javelin Park incinerator continues as a county council committee will debate changes to confidential business plans in the future.

Gloucestershire County Council’s Constitution Committee will discuss whether to make council contracts completely open to the public on Monday, January 16 at Shire Hall.

The issue was proposed by Cllr Sarah Lunnon (Green, Stroud Central) and was debated in full council on December 7, where it was delegated to the Constitution Committee.

She said: “The lack of openness on how our money is spent shouldn't be allowed to happen again.

“As more and more services are contracted out from GCC more and more oversight is being lost, and it's happening across local and national government and all our public services.

“We shouldn't have to rely on faith and trust, we should be able to know our money is being spent well and contributing to our common wealth.

"There is a fundamentally simple issue of Natural Justice here: those who have no choice but to pay the invoice should be allowed to see the itemised bill.

"Transparency and accountability are essential components of local government and other public bodies."

Her proposal intends to make all contracting processes over £1million available to the public by the end of 2017, and all processes over £500 by the end of 2018.

The debate to make council contracts more open rose from a flurry of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, which started in 2013, to see the full business details between the county council and Urbaser Balfour Beatty (UBB) – the successful incinerator applicants.

When the contract was published it was heavily redacted, a lot of the important business information such as the costs and savings related to the incinerator process were blacked out, along with the phrase:

“Not for publication by virtue of para 3 of schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 and the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information to the public.”

In 2015 this was overruled by the Information Commissioner - who oversees FOI disputes – stating: “Public authorities must be able to demonstrate the causal link between any such affect and the disclosure of the specific information.

“No precise examples have been provided of how the release of the specific information would result in the effect claimed.”

The county council is currently appealing this decision, claiming the business details are private and that revealing them would make for poor confidentiality practice, that it would expose UBB to other market competitors and affect future contract applications.

Council leader Cllr Mark Hawthorne (Con, Quedgeley), who also sits on the Constitution Committee, said: “If there’s scope to improve things, it’s legal and doesn’t take money from frontline services, I’m happy to look into it in more detail.”

Green party leader for Stroud District Council, Cllr Martin Whiteside (Thrupp), said: “It affects every single council tax payer.

“I don’t see any reason for this information to be kept from public knowledge unless they have something to hide, I think it’s an extremely shady deal.”