Here’s some basic democracy information; There are six scrutiny committees on Manchester City Council. Each is made up of 12 to 18 or so elected councillors each, and are there to “keep tabs” on what the Council – and other bodies – are doing to improve life for those people lucky enough to live and work in Manchester.
The six committees are Communities, Economy, Finance, Health, Neighbourhoods and Young People & Children (all links are to the official pages on the city council website. Here’s an overview page.).
These committees each meet ten times a year or so, at the Town Hall. The meetings are open to the public, and you don’t need to book or anything like that. The meetings last about two hours. They are “clustered” so all six meetings take place in the same week – one in the morning and one in the afternoon on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The next set of six meetings take place next week, which also happens to be “Climate Week.” Ironically for a council that prides itself on climate-awareness there is not a single scheduled item in any of the six meetings on climate change.

However, we are asking MCFly readers to write a positive constructive letter to the members of the Communities Scrutiny Committee, to get them to investigate how climate change both global and local will affect community cohesion and equality here in Manchester. Please do this now! And ask your friends and family to do the same.

We are ALSO asking readers to get involved in “adopting” a scrutiny committee – keeping tabs on it, constructively engaging its members, etc etc. It will be much more fun than it sounds, and you will learn loads of skills, meet new friends and generally have a good time. Honest! More details about this will appear imminently. If you are just too enthused to wait, please email us on mcmonthly@gmail.com

Finally, pencil in your diary the date Weds 22nd May. The Economy Scrutiny Committee meets on that day (in the morning, at the Town Hall), and they may well have Professor Kevin Anderson along. He’s the guy who shocked the Council recently with a no-holds-barred account of just how serious a situation we are in!