Agenda item

The committee considered a report of the Director of Legal and Democratic Services which outlined developments of the Local Government Association (LGA)’s Debate Not Hate campaign.

The report provided an update on developments of the LGA’s Debate Not Hate campaign, which aimed to raise public awareness of the role of councillors in their communities, encourage healthy debate and improve the responses and support for local politicians facing abuse and intimidation (for copy of report, see file of minutes)

Councillor Atkinson stated that ‘Debate Not Hate’ were strong words and anything along these lines should be reasonable and dealt with in a balanced manner. The movement from debate to hate was a huge jump and takes time to escalate. It takes something serious to move to hate and they needed to keep a level head about this.

Resolved: (i) That the report be noted.

(ii) That the Director of Legal and Democratic Services circulate details of the LGA’s workbook on stress management and personal resilience to all members.