Two city councillors have labeled a budget consultation with community volunteer equalities reps a farce after they were given just two minutes to respond to council budget proposals. Couns Sonja Crisp and Julie Gunnell sit on the authority's Social Inclusion Working Group (SIWG), and have described their recent meeting as an embarrassment.

SIWG Vice Chair, Coun. Sonja Crisp said:

"This ‘consultation's' results are now due before the Executive and I am appalled it plans to consider a flawed consultation that was presented in such an incompetent manner, and which was not completed. Not only did Chair Coun. Nigel Ayre inappropriately give insufficient time to consider the proposed budget implications, he also failed to give committee members the necessary information with which to make an informed judgment. So really the meeting was a farce and I felt ashamed to be part of it.
"The unfortunate irony in all of this is this group is here to give a voice to those who can sometimes be subjected to exclusion and prejudice, and yet this process has simply excluded them and the views of those they represent. Residents deserve much better than this".

The storm blew up when SIWG Chair Coun. Ayre said due to the meeting ‘running late', committee members would only be given only two minutes to consider the merits and demerits of the most significant proposed budget cuts in the area of social care.

Fellow committee member Coun. Julie Gunnell commented:

"This suggests the Liberal Democrats are wasting people's time and only paying lip service to social inclusion in this authority. We know from the recent oneplace assessment that the council is failing in the area of ensuring black and minority ethnic groups feel satisfied with their experience of living in this city. And the SIWG experience suggests that there is much to do on the equalities agenda as this consultation was conducted as if it was simply a tick-box exercise".

Having challenged the process with both the Chair and with the council's Democratic Services team, on the grounds that it was entirely undemocratic, and received no positive response, the two councillors have registered to speak at the next Executive meeting, next Tuesday, where they will express their views before the consultation is considered.