Cutting reports from some Dunedin City Council meetings has stifled councillors' ability to question one of the largest capital projects under way in the city, a city councillor says.
Mayor Dave Cull signalled his intention to streamline the flow of information coming to council committees after his inauguration last month, with some regular activity reports to be cut from committee agendas.
The move was part of Mr Cull's push to free up more time for councillors to participate in working parties and workshops.
However, Cr Paul Hudson criticised the move at yesterday's council community development committee meeting, saying the change was made - with no debate - ahead of the new council's first round of meetings.
That meant councillors meeting yesterday no longer had in front of them regular activity reports including from the city's libraries staff, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Otago Settlers Museum and the council's Community and Recreation Services (CARS) department, he said.
The reports were only for noting, with no decisions to be made, but detailed a variety of activities taking place across the areas they covered.
"There's a huge amount of information that comes through from those staff reports," Cr Hudson said.
In particular, the $35 million upgrade of the Otago Settlers Museum was one of the largest capital projects under way in the city, and councillors had in the past been able to question staff about progress when the museum's regular activity report was presented to the committee.
"At the moment there's going to be no forum to do that at all," he said.
Cr Hudson understood Mr Cull's aim was to cut unnecessary work, but said the reports provided a useful way of disseminating information about council activities through the media to the community.
Mr Cull had told the Otago Daily Times last month the information would still be made available to the media and placed on the council website instead for the public to read.
However, the missing committee reports were not on the council website yesterday, and the ODT was unable to obtain a copy of the CARS activity report this week despite repeated requests.
Mr Cull was in Wellington yesterday and missed the committee meeting, but committee chairman Cr Bill Acklin said he would raise Cr Hudson's concerns with Mr Cull.
Mr Cull said when contacted he would be happy to discuss it again at the next full council meeting on December 13, but reiterated the aim was to streamline council commitments.
"The only thing that's changed is where we do the questioning and where we do the reading. I just felt it was taking up a lot of time in meetings and I was concerned to cut back on the commitment councillors had to make just to note things."
The system to place the information online had not been arranged yet, but would be.
