A piece of legislation going through the House of Keys could make it easier for residents to access minutes from local authority meetings.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Thomas says the Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2023 ‘updates’ and improves the operations of the island’s boards of commissioners.

He believes it will also clarify boundary areas and the way byelaws are taken to Tynwald.

Mr Thomas said: ‘This Bill has been a long time in the drafting.

‘It’s been through the House of Keys once before and what it basically does is updates in certain respects and improves in certain ways the operations of local government legislation.

‘So, for instance, it deals with things like the legal basis of joint boards, joint committees, publication of minutes, how conflicts of interests are handled.

‘Things like members expenses at local authority level, how ward boundaries are changed and how their pension scheme is administered. So a whole range of technical things that have been collected together.’

Asked whether the bill will have more impact on local authorities or constituents, the Douglas Central MHK said: ‘I’ll give you an example if you want to know what’s going on in your local authority – this Bill will enhance your ability to see minutes because this legislation actually makes it a requirement to make those minutes available.

‘It has impact because it covers members expenses.

‘So the more that’s paid to local authority members, some of them don’t get anything.

‘Some of them get a little bit that’s covered in this legislation.

He continued: ‘But I have to confess it’s more of a technical bill dealing with the fact that the Douglas Market is now no longer a market and dealing with the fact that pensions legislation has changed through the years and dealing with the fact that we now have joint bodies and joint committees much more than we ever used to. So we need to tidy things up’.

Asked about the clarification of local boundaries, Mr Thomas said: ‘It puts into the maps the current boundaries and it also changes the procedure to make it easier in future to change boundaries.

‘At the moment I have to take things like byelaws through to Tynwald and seek Tynwald’s approval.

‘We help in the Department of Infrastructure as the people responsible for local authorities, we help in the preparation, but ultimately it’s the local authority that has the power to create its own byelaws, quite rightly.

‘This legal change basically says that the department can approve those byelaws, and then they lay them before Tynwald such that Tynwald could then take action if they wanted to, rather than, you know, disrespecting the local authority by actually asking Tynwald to approve byelaws. It’s the other way round.’

Mr Thomas pointed out that a formal consultation took place in 2017, and that ‘mostly local authorities just want it in, in force and in place’.