Instead a bigger review of the council’s approach to briefings and monthly meetings will be undertaken with transparency at its heart.

The mayor, Anna Speedie, drove a motion for the review on Monday night, overturning a recommendation which would have seen briefings become public from August.

That could have seen Monday morning briefings opened from 9am to 11am following a confidential session from 8.30am.

However, Cr Speedie said it would be better to have a wider analysis of briefings and meetings “to improve their transparency, efficiency and effectiveness for informing the community”.

“I would like to see the best practice actually put down,” she said.

“That for me, means taking a step back and actually looking at everything and I think that it would then provide the better outcome for our community and also us as councillors to be able to improve transparency.

“Rather than put something in, we figure out it doesn’t work and we’ve got to go back and change it, for me I’d like to do it right from the start.”

Cr Speedie also noted the Victorian government was planning to have new meeting procedures as part of legislative changes, so it would be wise to wait for those before making radical switches.

The mayor’s stance was supported by fellow councillors with Ron Mildren describing it as an “eminently responsible approach”.

Kat Bennett said it was important to be thorough.

“If we’re looking at this from a transparency and accessibility point of view just opening up our Monday briefings doesn’t necessarily make that more transparent or accessible, it might even make it less because people can struggle getting to a Monday night meeting, let alone a Monday morning at 9 o’clock in the morning,” she said. 

A November deadline has been set for the review to be submitted to council.