A fascinating series of events occurred at our last parish council meeting, and I would like to share it, and request opinions from experienced members as to the validity of what happened. Sorry that this is a long post, but there is a lot to cover. I’ll start by saying that our council is normally not very political - most things are dealt with unanimously and disagreements are handled courteously. Occasionally however there are contentious items on the agenda.
At our last meeting there was a contentious item on the agenda. Councillor A, a very experienced councillor of 20+ years experience was against the proposal and had (he claims) 8 out of 15 councillors on his side including with councillor B. Both of them have served as chair in the past. However, on the night, 3 of ‘his’ councillors couldn’t make it so he wouldn’t have had the numbers to vote down the motion. Before we got to that item on the agenda, there was a routine item to receive a request from the village hall from some money and agree action. 4 councillors, including the chair, are trustees of the village hall and therefore have an interest in that item, so they left the room and the vice-chair took the chair for the meeting. At this point, before anything else could be said, councillor A moved a ‘motion without notice’ under standing order 10 (a) 17 to close the meeting, seconded immediately by councillor B. The purpose of this was clearly to avoid holding and losing the vote later in the meeting on the contentious item.
As you might expect, there was a bit of commotion from some councillors, but the vice-chair calmed things down, while the clerk (4 years’ experience) explained that it was possible to move a motion without notice and no other motion (i.e. relating to the village hall) had yet been moved. The vice-chair called for a vote which was resolved 5 for and 3 against, and the meeting was closed.
Someone rushed out to retrieve the chair and the other councillors and a row then erupted between the chair, vice-chair, clerk and councillor A about whether what happened was in order or not. As you would expect, nothing was resolved on the night. The key line of argument from the clerk, vice-chair and councillor A is that a motion without notice can be moved at any time and so what happened was valid. The argument from the chair is that once the motion was moved, he and the other village hall councillors should have been notified and given the chance to return to the room to vote, and indeed that he should have chaired the discussion on that motion. He is also arguing that the vice-chair should have given councillors a chance to debate the motion without notice rather than proceeding straight to a vote.
As you might imagine this has created a lot of bad feeling within the council and seems especially to have affected the relationship between the clerk and the chair, which used to be a good working relationship. I’ve read through our standing orders, in particular the section about interests and withdrawing from meetings. My take on this is that the ‘motion without notice’ was indeed validly proposed and seconded, but that the vice-chair should have allowed debate before moving on to a vote (which would have allowed time for the chair to return to the meeting). Common sense tells me that the chair and others should have been given the chance to return to the meeting, but the standing orders don’t appear to be too helpful with regards to withdrawing from and returning to the meeting. The clerk has subsequently (privately) agreed that the chair and others should have been able to re-join the meeting, but blames the vice-chair for running things through too quickly.
Now, the contentious item will be on the agenda for the next meeting and will probably be defeated. I am more concerned about the long term damage this has done to relationships on the council, and I am also interested in whether what happened was ‘in order’ or not. In my view this turns on how the withdrawing from the meeting and returning to the meeting is handled. We use model standing orders and for reference the relevant part is below:
“Unless he has been granted a dispensation, a councillor or non-councillor with voting rights shall withdraw from a meeting when it is considering a matter in which he has a disclosable pecuniary interest. He may return to the meeting after it has considered the matter in which he had the interest.”
It seems right and normal that the village hall councillors left when the next item of business was to discuss the village hall. Normally at our council, any councillor with an interest in an item on the agenda leaves the room and goes into a vestibule area with seating which is 30m or so from the meeting room at the opposite end of the village hall, so there is no chance of hearing the council, and the meeting room door is closed. Then the item is discussed, motions moved, votes taken etc.. Once the item is over, the chair will ask a councillor sitting near the door to go retrieve the missing councillors, and we sit in silence until everyone is back in their seats, before the chair moves to the next item on the agenda. I don’t know if this is the ‘right’ way to do things but it is how we’ve always done it. This happens at most meetings as several councillors have other roles around the village, such as the trustees at the village hall, elders at the church and committee members for the sports pavilion, all of which receive varying levels of financial support from the council.
I would like to hear from experienced councillors and clerks on whether this was handled properly and, if not, what should have happened. Also, any tips on where we go from here would be welcome.
