Councillor Diogo Rodrigues was removed from the Bridgwater Town Council’s Extraordinary Finance and Corporate Services Committee meeting this morning while attempting to question the handling of a £420,000 budget deficit. The chairman of the committee, Mick Lerry, ordered Cllr Rodrigues to leave after refusing to extend the meeting time to allow for proper scrutiny of the council’s financial plans.
The meeting was scheduled for only 30 minutes, with 20 minutes taken up by the Town Chief Executive presenting the report on the budget position. This left just 10 minutes for committee members to ask questions and challenge the robustness of the proposed solutions. Cllr Rodrigues had prepared a series of questions aimed at addressing concerns over the council's financial management but was prevented from asking them due to time constraints.
Cllr Rodrigues stated, "The meeting did not allow for proper scrutiny. If the council doesn’t allow for critical friends to challenge the robustness of the finances, which is taxpayer money, then the finances of the council will tumble. There were significant financial risks in the report that were not identified in the papers, and this is not acceptable."
Despite requests to extend the meeting, Chairman Mick Lerry refused, instructing Cllr Rodrigues to ask his questions in private, which Diogo declined as the matters were of public interest. The situation escalated when Lerry began wagging his finger at Rodrigues, an action which the councillor found disrespectful. When Rodrigues demanded that Lerry stop wagging his finger, he was ordered to leave the meeting.
The council's decision to allocate only 30 minutes for such a critical discussion raises concerns about transparency and accountability. "Is this a deliberate attempt to disallow questioning from the councillors present?" Rodrigues asked. "Can council finances be properly scrutinised with just 10 minutes of questioning? If every committee member was given 2 minutes to ask a question, then we would have gone well over the time available."
The backdrop to this meeting includes a significant error in the council's budgeting software, as reported in the BBC, discovered after the council had taken on additional services through a devolution deal with Somerset Council. This error has led to an identified budget black hole of £420,000, which the council plans to manage through a mix of reserves, increased income generation, and savings.
The situation has prompted questions about how the council oversees its finances and the opportunities given to councillors to challenge financial projections robustly. Cllr Rodrigues emphasises that this is a matter of holding the council accountable and standing up for hardworking taxpayers who deserve transparent and effective governance.
"It is acceptable to throw a councillor out of a meeting for aggressive behaviour such as finger pointing in someone's face," Rodrigues added, "but we should never throw a councillor out of a meeting for questioning huge financial errors. This is about ensuring transparency and accountability for the people we serve."
