Does this apply if there were only five meetings missed in the six month period

Question

Please can you tell me where this six month rule is so that I can quote it.
Also if there are only five meetings in a six month period (no meeting is held in August) then has six months meetings been missed if there are only five actual meetings.

Answer 1

The rule is contained in Section 85(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 and it states that "if a member of a local authority fails throughout a period of six consecutive months from the date of his last attendance to attend any meeting of the authority, he shall unless the failure is due to some reason approved by the authority before the expiry of that period, cease to be a member of the authority.  So, it is not six meetings but six months, regardless of how many meetings the member might have missed.   If meetings are only held every two months, for example, he (or she) might be disqualified for only missing a couple of meetings, depending on the actual dates of the meetings.