At our pc meeting cllrs are always having private chats

Question

The chairman does not seem to be able to stop it how do other chairs sort out bad behaviour in meetings

Answer 1

Every competent chair must be able to maintain order and ensure debates are conducted in accordance with Standing Orders in orderly and proper fashion. You would hope fellow cllrs when selecting a chair carefully consider whether they possess said attributes essential to the job. Its certainly quite concerning if your Chair is still having issues in December (assuming ordinary appointment in May) in what is one of the basic core skills necessary to perform role. It should be stressed a range of different ways to maintain order with the personality and specific local variants key to assessing how to approach it. Why are other members been disruptive (intentional or simply equally incompetent) is another key question you need ask.

Comments

The chairman does try very hard to stop it he does stop the meeting and asks them to stop chatting at the start of the meeting he tells the Cllr how to conduct them self some of our Cllr have been he for 20 + years and seem to think they can just do what ever they want the other the week a Cllr wanted to tell a funny story and ask the clerk not to minute it the chair did stop her and pointed out is a public meeting. Anyway the chair is going on a nalc training for chair soon not sure if it will help

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Unless your one of the lucky areas your NALC or ALC training really wont teach the skills needed. Sounds like your Chair needs to up the anti and assert control.  Take the meeting format back to basics. Shut down members firmly when going off on vague tangents. Clear Voice with clarity and own the floor. I asserted control early on with clear voice and focus. I made sure I over prepared to point I knew agenda & papers from memory. I battle planned every possible response in my own mind and delivered lines and put those been disruptive in the proverbial boxes.  I made it clear was only going to be one winner and showed them if they wanted to be disruptive they would ultimately loose..

Answer 2

The nuclear option would be for the chair to call to suspend the meeting I suppose, if they had enough support from the other councillors?  May be that happening a couple of times might channel the minds a bit?

Answer 3

I always put my hand up and wait for the permission of the Chair to speak some others just chip in
SO are enforced depending on how it suits

I seriously wonder if our Borough Council procedure of speakers standing up ( if they can ) wouldn’t be better

Answer 4

You won’t solve this problem with a 2 hr online NALC ‘course.’  That’ll be a complete waste of time, money and effort.
If, as it seems, you have 20 year served Cllrs it’s just as likely that the root of the problem is disengagement and disinterest from the electorate which has (assumed) allowed many successive uncontested elections returning the same inadequate and poorly behaving Cllrs which enables the perpetuation of bad habits and ineffective procedure as new entries to the council (probably through repeated cooption) are inculcated with existing habits and behaviour.
It’s just possible I’ll concede that you ‘could’ have 20 yr served Cllrs because they are so ‘good’ at the role that they warrant multiple terms of office - don’t sound that way from what you’ve described though.
The enduring solution to problems like this is invariably to drastically uplift public awareness and engagement in council business. Find a way to let people know their behaviour will and is being viewed more broadly - audio / video record and broadcast council meetings for a start!

Comments

Couldn’t agree more only the other day I heard a Councillor boasting that they had served 20 years the irony of the fact that in all that time he hadn’t had a single vote cast in his favour didn’t escape me
Even stranger is the fact that every year the budget contains around £9000 for a full election when there has been one election in one of the four wards in 30 years
I’ve tried to point out that even  if in their wildest dreams they thought there was going to be an election then there should be a specific reserve not a repeated expense

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We see (but more importantly- recognise!) a very similar picture Jules.

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Thank you everyone for you comments must election we do not have enough people coming forward and the pc ends up trying to co opt we do have one Cllr who loves to tell everyone he is the longest serving pc over 40 years any way I will pass on your comments to the chair as he is get very disappointed by the way many of the pc seen to think it is a social event

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Maybe you have actually fallen upon a potential solution within your previous post!

Take a lesson from dog training
Let the dogs out for a free-run to ease off the excitement of all getting together before setting down to the serious business of training...

Maybe have a coffee + cake opportunity for 30 mins BEFORE the council meeting start time to allow for some talking and socialising so that when the whistle goes for the kick-off people will settle down to business.  Even better if you can sell it as a public engagement opportunity.