matters arising has been removed off the agenda by clerk saying its illgal is it?

Question

“Recently, our clerk unexpectedly removed ‘Matters Arising’ from the agenda. I had missed two meetings, and upon reviewing the minutes, I found no mention of this removal. When I inquired, I was informed that it is considered illegal. Consequently, any tasks I need to perform are not reported, as they was no longer included on the agenda. Does anyone know where I can verify the accuracy of this claim?”

Answer 1

The Local Government Act states that the agenda for a meeting should specify the business which it is proposed to transact (LGA 1972 Sch 12) and by virtue of the case of Longfield Parish Council v Wright , a council cannot lawfully decide any matter which is not specified in the summons.  Taking both together, the use of matters arising is unclear exactly what is going to be discussed so whilst not exactly illegal - no one is going to get arrested for it - it is not considered best practice.  However, there are often matters which might have been agreed at a previous meeting for which an update is required so some councils use the Clerk's report or reports from councillors to fulfil that function albeit anything raised in that section of the meeting cannot be discussed or any decisions taken unless there is a separate agenda item.  If you wish to report something and for there to be a discussion on it, it needs to be separately specified on the agenda.

Comments

If council agreed to incur expenditure at a meeting of full council, for something that was not on the agenda, but the value of the item was below the sum that standing orders say the clerk can authorise in conjunction with the chairman, what would be the legal status of this:

a) Whilst it was technically unlawful for the council to make the decision, the clerk and chair could agree at any time to make the payment, so nothing to see here, everything is above board
b) The decision was made by full council, had they voted no the clerk could not then go ahead and make the payment anyway (or could they?), so the clerks powers were irrelevant, the decision was unlawful
c)  Something else

Answer 2

How about asking the clerk to cite the legislation that makes its inclusion "illegal". Unfortunately too many take advice why something is not required or not helpful as being "illegal"

Comments

Totally!

Somebody wants to tell me something is "illegal" the first think I'm going to ask is show me...