The City of Kwinana council has rejected a push from staff to start its meetings half-an-hour early.

Staff had recommended council meetings return to a 5.30pm start time from 6pm as part of setting meeting dates for next year.

But the council voted at its October 21 meeting in support of a proposal from Cr Balian Miller to keep the later start time to give the public — and themselves — more time to get to meetings.

It will keep its current monthly meeting cycle.

A report to the council said the 6pm start time had not resulted in more people attending or taking part in meetings.

“Returning to 5.30pm would support more efficient meeting arrangements, reduce the likelihood of meetings extending unnecessarily late into the evening, and provide a better balance for elected members, staff and members of the public, while maintaining reasonable opportunities for community participation,” the report said.

Crs Miller and Michael James Brown listed councils which started their meetings at 6pm or later.

“There’s a clear fundamental reason why the vast majority of these metropolitan local governments start at 6pm or later, and that is because it gives the working resident a chance to attend the meeting,” Cr Miller said.

“A 5.30 start forces residents commuting home from the CBD or even working in the Kwinana industrial area to have to rush through peak hour traffic to make public question time, which is at the start of every meeting.

“If they miss public question time, well, that there is their chance gone to raise a question to all the councilors, elected members, and even the CEO himself.

“Keeping our start time at 6pm sends a clear signal that our doors are open and that we are structuring around your schedule, not what is convenient.”

Cr Brown said a 6pm start time gave people a more realistic opportunity to attend a meeting after work.

“A later start reduces the need to seek permission to leave early or sacrifice paid working time,” he said.

“(There has been) no ordinary council meeting with zero attendees when we have had a start time of 6pm. The same cannot be said about the earlier start time of 5.30pm in the past where since that was introduced, there have been many meetings with zero attendees.

“(The data presented) occurred during a time of significant disruption to the ordinary council meeting process with a change in venue and I didn’t at least see any additional promotion of a revised start time.”

He said he was not worried about meetings finishing later because most meetings were over in less than 90 minutes.

The October 21 meeting started at 6pm and finished by 7.26pm. The shortest meeting was in September, which was over in 34 minutes. The longest was in March, which went for two hours and 39 minutes.

Mayor Peter Feasey said he was not fussed about the start time but members of the public did not have to attend a meeting to have their question answered.

“If a member of the public has an issue with the city, they can take that question up with any number of elected members, myself or the organisation any day of the year,” he said.

“If someone wants to be here because they have an issue, they will be here regardless of whether it starts at 5.30 or six o’clock.”

Deputy mayor Barry Winmar said quite often he was not able to get to meetings until about 10 minutes before they started.

Cr Sherilyn Wood said if the 6pm start time enabled one extra person to come to a meeting, it was worth it.

The change was presented as part of a report calling on the council to set its 2027 meeting dates.

Cr Ivy Penny supported the later start time but wanted the city to also hold public agenda briefings.

She said other local governments that had a similar population to Kwinana held agenda briefings or other public meetings, and the lack of briefings was affecting council meetings.

“There’s more questions. there’s more confusion leading up to meetings. There’s a lot more emails flying around in conversations which I think could be better sorted out either in a briefing or exploring these other models of governance that the other local governments are employing,” Cr Penny said.

Cr Matthew Rowse said council members received a “satisfactory” amount of information before meetings.

City CEO Wayne Jack said public agenda briefings were not best practice and some councils were trying to move away from them.

“It’s a very WA thing. It’s not done in any other States or in New Zealand, purely because it’s removing the debate which should occur in the chamber. That’s why it’s not good practice,” he said.

The report to the council said there had not been a demonstrated need to return to fortnightly meetings.

Monthly meetings were considered to make better use of staff resources and reduce costs.

Four meetings were cancelled under a past fortnightly schedule because there was nothing to discuss.

“The availability of meetings via live streaming and subsequent online viewing provides the community with an alternative means of accessing council proceedings at a time that is more convenient to them,” the report said.