Can a Parish Councillor resign by email

Question

I have researched the question and have taken advise from very experienced Clerks but our Clerk says and has taken a resignation from a Parish Councillor via email who had to leave. It turns out the Councillor in question computer is used by many different people and did say as soon as he received the confirmation from the Clerk

Answer 1

The fact that the resignation has been received by your clerk is irrelevant.  A resignation is only effective if a written notice is received by the Chairman of the Council.  My understanding is that, in this day and age, an email is acceptable.  If there is any doubt then I would simply check with the person concerned that the resignation is genuine.

Comments

Thanks, you for your response, re 'in this day and age an email is acceptable' that may be so, but does this comply with the Law, and your comment I totally agree make sense 'I would simply check with the person' I would have thought this would be a simple safeguard. Obviously, the councillor in question if safeguards were in place could have been in a position to confirm he did not send the email, however he was at odds with both the Clerk and Chairman and although he responded to the Clerks acceptance email back to him within literally minutes of receiving it they then referred to the correct procedure that once they had received it tuff. Problem really is this and seeing other comments once a rouge council always a rough council and no one to appeal to.

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If nothing else, this highlights the importance of a dedicated and secure email address for council business should only be used by councillors!
I can confirm however that (a) a resignation must be addressed to the Chair and (b) email resignations are permitted and immediately upon receipt are effective.  Our elections office (at county level) require us to forward any resignation - email or letter - directly to them and they then use this to start the formal process of advertising the vacancy.
If the councillor so wishes, he/she can present themselves for re-election or co-option as appropriate but in the first instance should be addressing how someone "hacked" his/her email account to send the email in the first place.    Potential GDPR breach too.

Answer 2

The answer to your question is yes, but I don't understand the additional comments you made.  Why did the councillor have to leave? What did the councillor receive confirmation about?

Comments

Graham thanks for your response but don't understand your answer of yes however the councillor had to leave because the Clerk and Chairman had received a rogue email (many people use his computer) submitting his resignation. The confirmation was in response to the rogue email that submitted his resignation