Using my Councillor Email on Event

Question

My parish council didn't want to get involved in an Event that I was organising so as a councillor on my own I made it an event organised and promoted by me as a councillor for the people of my town and put my councillor email on the poster.
The clerk and councillors are now saying they will complain to the Monitoring Officer for misleading the public by using my gov.uk email .......

They cannot offer up any law, rule, guideline or policy that prohibits a councillor who organises his own event at his own cost for the good of the community from using his councillor email......they are threatening now to put up a notice on the council notice board stating that I am misleading people by using my councillor email ......I am a councillor.....!

Answer 1

As a matter of interest, if you ran this event personally, did you carry out risk assessments, did you have public liability insurance, did you have all the permissions and licences necessary to proceed?  How would you have handled any claims for damage, negligence or injury whilst attending the event?

Comments

it is a drop in information event on LGBT History month - with tea and coffee

Answer 2

Individual Cllr engages with community on a given subject which doesn’t necessarily attract whole council interest….

Just laugh at them and let them do what they want to do.

Comments

exactly.....thank you

Answer 3

As with any business or organisation, using your business address or email address or other resources provided to you to carry out the functions of your role for personal matters is not appropriate.  In this case, the councillor email address implies to anyone outside the organisation that the function is sanctioned or supported by the council and therefore covered by council insurances, managed in accordance with council procedures etc.  As you have said, your council resolved not to support this event so use of your councillor email address is inappropriate, misleading and may even be considered fraudulent.
By all means arrange events or carry out actions for your community, but unless sanctioned by your council, you do so as an individual resident.

Comments

where is the law, rules, policy, evidence to support this?

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Firstly check out your PC's code of conduct and standing orders and you may well find the answer to your question staring you in the face.

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Community engagement is a fundamental role of a parish councillor.

Any individual Cllr may embark upon community engagement in their own way, at their own pace and to their own limitations - there is absolutely no requirement, restriction nor mandate that it should be formally endorsed by the PC.

Just think about it....  The proposition that a Cllr can only use their PC email address after a resolution of the PC is patently absurd and ridiculous...

In fact, it is entirely counter intuitive to suggest otherwise.

Use of parish council email address to facilitate community engagement is entirely appropriate.

The only "implication" which should be drawn from the use of the PC email address is that the person sending the email or appending the email address is a parish councillor.

There is nothing in the original post which states that the council RESOLVED not to support the event, merely that there was a disinterest in it.  Even if the council HAD resolved not to support there is absolutely NOTHING to prevent an individual advancing their own lines of interest under the auspices of being a parish councillor.

Whilst it would not be appropriate to intimate that the event had PC endorsement if it did not, that is not what is being described in the OP.

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100% correct - I rang my party advice line and they 100% agreed with what you have said....thank you for taking the time to respond.

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Ut-oh! Party politics
I’ve never been keen on party politics at PC level but, now you mention it, maybe (likely) you’ll get sound, credible and sane advice from OUTSIDE of the first tier where there genuinely are some bizarre,  outlandish and irregular - albeit firmly held - beliefs often perpetuated by the very organisations (NALC / SLCC) that are ‘supposed’ to provide advice and guidance to the sector.
Alls well that ends well - let us know how your misguided council reacts

Answer 4

The unlikely the Monitoring officer will want to get involved. As long as you didnt give the impression that this was a council led activity in other words it was only you I dont see the problem.

I use my Parish email to talk to other Parish councils, police, county council , some charities connect to the parish - check your email procedures