When an agenda is being prepared, one should consider whether particular items require council’s attention or could be handled by staff within council guidelines. What about issues that have come before council several times previously? Should a policy be established with respect to such issues, which can then be handled by staff?
A traditional agenda for a municipal meeting commonly followed a format that gave early attention to matters such as deputations and communications and concluded with by-laws and notices of motion (for future meetings). It should be obvious that such a format is backwards in its sequence. Much of the first half of the meeting is devoted to items (especially deputations), the timing of which is difficult to estimate in advance and to control once underway. The important activity of passing by-laws comes late in the meeting when council members are often tired and anxious to get finished and head home.
A much more logical agenda sequence would deal with the urgent, then the important, and finally the routine. A number of routine action items could be combined into a single consent report. Information items, if included at all, should be in a separate information package, not part of the action agenda. If the municipality has a strategic plan the agenda should identify items that relate to specific priorities of the plan.
Staff Reports
Councillors need reports that are clear and concise (which increases the chance that they will be read) and also comprehensive enough to provide the basis for an informed decision by council. Reports that are incomplete or superficial can result in an unwise decision or can cause delays while items are referred back for further information. Having a standard format for reports from staff (and also standing committees) is increasingly common and brings several advantages. Councillors can more easily handle a large volume of reports when they all follow the same format. They can go right to a particular aspect that is of special interest to them. The standard format helps to focus council’s discussions and the resolution of the issue. There is no one reporting format that is “the best.” The key is for the councillors and staff in any particular municipality to decide together on the format that works best for them.
A Streamlined Approach
Let me conclude by outlining one other approach, which I observed close to half a century ago. Before conducting a municipal workshop, I always made it a point to attend some meetings to observe the interaction of councillors and staff and to provide background that would allow me to develop a training program that would be particularly suited to the needs of those involved. My client in this instance was a rural municipality in Eastern Ontario and the clerk-treasurer was a formidable female of considerable experience who organized the flow of information to council most efficiently. In her municipality, councillors were not overloaded with lengthy agendas and bulky packages of supporting materials. Most of the paper was piled in front of the clerk-treasurer, and she gradually worked her way through it as the meeting progressed. She would pick up an item, briefly explain what it concerned, and suggest to the reeve how council might wish to proceed with the matter. She would turn to mail received by the municipality (sometimes opening a letter for the first time and glancing at it) and would often announce that this matter need not concern the council as she crushed and tossed the paper into the nearby wastebasket. Councillors would look at the basket rather wistfully and ask what that was about. It is not something that you have to deal with, she would advise the councillors, and that was the end of the discussion.
This is not an approach that I would endorse, but there is no doubt that it spared councillors the tyranny of the agenda (substituting instead the tyranny of the clerk-treasurer).