A vocal campaigner for open democracy in Sheffield has raised concerns about how the city council is run. 

On the 30 April Ruth Hubbard, the founder of ‘Its Our City’ campaign and local community activist, drew attention to the recent ‘policy committee remit’ during a meeting of the city council’s Governance Committee.

A policy committee remit is intended to outline the responsibilities and key goals of the committee.

The report- which was decided on 30 April 2025- was intended to ‘set out the key themes and findings of the review’ in line with the six month review policy.

She said: “ I simply note once again the failure of this committee to enable and ensure any meaningful citizen or community engagement or influence in shaping the design and ongoing review of the committee system, despite the fact that governance change was secured wholly by citizen and community mobilisation.’

“Inevitably then we’re looking at an insular review and report pretty much wholly tied up with the council’s own interests and priorities.”

Deputy leader of the Council, Councillor Fran Belbin, was asked to read out the statement made at the governance committee meeting by Councillor Paul Turpin who said he believed it was relevant.

She then confirmed that her and Ruth had spoken about her concerns, but did not speak further on the matter. 

In another statement for the meeting, Hubbard criticised the committee’s handling of the new development of a Communities Strategy under the Strategy and Resources umbrella.

She drew attention to the fact that the process should be fully ‘public, webcasted and minuted’.

Hubbard noted that she had been excluded from decision making regarding the community strategy. 

She said: “As the only stakeholder/expert actively excluded from the so-called ‘Community Engagement Workshop’ in September 2024. I was assured of further follow-up opportunities to help strategically shape this work. Seven months later I have heard nothing yet about these opportunities”

“I am somewhat reminded of the behind closed doors development of the LACs which was an extraordinary way to proceed with such a piece of work, and outside all bounds of good practice. “

Councillor Fran Belbin did not read this second statement out as she believed ‘it related to the minutes of the other meeting’.

Ruth Hubbard has been a key voice in democracy in Sheffield for a number of years, as she founded its our city campaign in 2018 alongside being involved in Sheffield oversight and scrutiny (SOS).

The grassroots It’s Our City campaign began in 2018 and created a petition to force the city council to hold a referendum on how the council is run. 

She nods to this campaign in her statement as she mentions the ‘governance change secured wholly by citizen and community mobilisation.’

The campaign was extremely successful, with over 26,000 people in Sheffield signing the petition for a referendum. 

This led to the change of Sheffield’s city council from cabinet-style to a ‘modern-committee’ system in May 2022, allowing decisions to be made more democratically and giving power to all elected councillors.