Is there an independent adviser who councillors can speak to about bullying by a chairman

Question

Several councillors have been bullied by the chairman and he is dictating to us and stopping councillors from saying anything at meetings and making decisions without consulting councillors. A few of us would like to speak to someone independent about this situation as he seems to have connections in the local council can anyone suggest who we could speak to please.

Answer 1

Bullying as with beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is forceful debate or enforcement of rules bullying?

Of course your local county NALC office should be there to give " independent advice" and there to advise ( it is what you pay the subscription for  ). The monitoring officer will only investigate code of conduct breaches so read your codes and tie up their behaviour in council to one or more of the requirements. Nolan principles are a good place to start.

Answer 2

A Chairman has a difficult task to keep a meeting on track. A parish council meeting runs for a short time to discuss a lot of information and if councillors keep going back and forth on a debate the time soon overruns. Preparing for the meeting beforehand is key so unnecessary question do not need to be asked  this is good practice. Only the items on the agenda should be discussed but in the correct procedure a councillor should only speak once on each topic if they wish to unless asked to answer a direct question via the chairman.

Answer 3

As far as I can tell, where I live, there is no one independent who can (or is willing to) give advice to councillors. Generally speaking, the Chair and Clerk hold the line between myself and advice from our county body, and only a well put complaint based on the code of conduct will gain me access to advice from the district monitoring officer. Of course without an upheld complaint, advice does not need to be taken on board by anyone, and bullying is a difficult one to land. You are expected to suffer all manner of indignities because you offered yourself for election and so must expect the cut and thrust of debate…

You may have more success in a complaint if you can demonstrate that he has broken the code of conduct in other ways as well as bullying.
Having said all this, I know that there are some colleagues on this site who have a different experience of their Monitoring Officer and it may be worth finding out how open they are to giving you some support.

Answer 4

I sent several emails from the Chairman to full council suggesting I resign etc to the MO who agreed the content was bullying & disrespectful  etc . I have yet to make an official complaint .

My crime is asking questions and having an opinion . Apparently I like to be heard .

I'm sure the Chairman got to hear about it as it's  stopped . Unfortunately there is no help available for parish councillors when the clerk does the same.

Answer 5

The first point to make is that the Chair of a town or parish council has no elevated powers over and above any other councillors other than the right to unilaterally call an extraordinary meeting.  They are required to chair full council meetings and countersign some documents. The chair does NOT have any supervisory or disciplinary jurisdiction over any other councillor. I would start filming or making  audio recordings of the meetings he chairs if possible. Anybody is entitled to do this. If he makes any attempt to instruct you to do something, politely respond by telling him he is not entitled to direct you to follow instructions, and that you will not accept or act on any from him. If you have video or audio evidence of the bullying this should be submitted to the monitoring officer as a breach of your Council code of conduct. If the monitoring officer refuses to get involved you can report the MO for failing to undertake their duty to the local govt ombudsman.