AN attempt to gain freer public access to Sedgefield Borough Council documents has failed.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Gary Huntington told a recent council meeting that he believed some items were being kept confidential when they should be out in the open.

He suggested a change to the system which would mean the council's monitoring officer having the final say about which items were confidential.

He also said documents were being kept from the public when only small parts of them were confidential.

He said: "Authorities up and down the country are using confidential reports to hide away information that the Press and public might find distasteful. I believe this is not acceptable in a democracy. If any officer believes a report has confidential information it should go through our monitoring officer and our solicitor for them to decide. The bits that are not confidential should be part of a separate report."

Councillor Don Fraser said the way items were deemed confidential was set out in the council's constitution, which could only be changed at the annual meeting

Council leader Councillor Brian Stephens said: "This is an open council. We try to be as open as we possibly can, but there are some things that are not going to be in the public domain.

"The council's constitution sets out the procedures which apply in relation to access to information. There is no reason why this procedure should change."

The motion was defeated.