Can A parish Councillor be removed by way of a motion

Question

We have a very Vexatious councillor that has led to the resignation of our assistant clerk and contributed to others resigning in the past.

The councillor continuously bombards the clerk with emails, taking up a vast amount of their time creating a toxic environment for both clerks and councillors.
The person undermines the clerk, questions EVERYTHING they do. Surely the clerks should be encouraged and assisted in their roles so both councillors and clerks work harmoniously to represent the community.

The councillor has been asked to resign by other councillors but refuses. They have been asked to stop the vexatious emails but it falls on deaf ears. Surely there must be a way to remove them from post in order that the council can move forward and stop wasting time fulfilling the needs of one councillor.

Answer 1

A councillor cannot be removed.  You can raise a complaint to the Monitoring Officer but they have no teeth and can only suggest (not require) training.

Comments

Thats disappointing to hear, but I suspected as much. It likely we will lose our clerk in the very near future because of this person vexatious approach.

Answer 2

Can you give us some examples of vexatious issues being raised by this miscreant then...  Surely it is not considered as vexatious just because they are asking questions that others have neither the interest nor intellect to ask?
It is often the case that what one side thinks of as "vexatious" the other side thinks of as diligent.

Have you even considered that the issue may actually be 1 diligent Cllr and a majority of ill informed, incompetent and/or lazy Cllrs being encouraged (even by the clerk) to view the other side as vexatious because their own inadequacies are being exposed?

Give us something to make a judgement on rather than just 1 side of the story....

Comments

sounds wise to me

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As always there can be two sides to every story.  Both sides should realise that the ultimate goal of any Council is to provide a quality service to the electorate .  While clerks are paid and fully supported by various organisations Councillors receive no such support and sometimes asking questions is the only way forward.  Don't know what the answer is but the complete unaccountability of PCs does not help. Makes the current Conservative /Labour spats look like a garden party

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Jacko I would argue that what some se as unaccountability etc is in fact a great strength unique to PC's in facilitating what a council should be doing in working unfettered  for the good of their community.
 Councillors and clerks should be bound tightly to the Nolan principles ( unlike all others in public life it seems) . Personal ambition, agendas and kudos seeking should have no place in this first tier of government( closest to the people) . If we get it right then the electorate will come to expect ( and get) higher standards and principles of their elected bodies thereby becoming more intolerant of personal and party agendas and corruption. If the roots are infected then so is the whole tree.
The solution is in our lowly hands to give our communities ( and thereby the nation) higher expectations of us rather than apathy which rots the system. Apathy closes your eyes to what is done in your name. Here endeth the sermon!

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Mentorman I agree completely .  Sadly though Utopia does not exist

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And never will unless those with the abilities, desire, dedication and selflessness become the majority  for seeking election to office

Answer 3

In almost all cases, there is no way to remove a councillor except when periodic elections come up. Then it is up to the electorate.

One answer is to use the facilities provided by most email systems to block or divert emails from someone who is agreed to be a troublemaker. (If the email system doesn't support this, get a better one).

In the past I have been involved in doing this, where a councillor was deemed to be harassing the clerk. Their emails were diverted to a couple of supportive councillors. The clerk did not see them. Any genuinely important issue was handled by the councillors, with the clerk's involvement if appropriate.

If there are no councillors willing to take this role, then the emails could simply be rejected and the councillor in question told that they can only contact the clerk in writing. That would almost certainly at least slow them down.

I'm afraid there is no complete answer to difficult councillors.

Comments

It is true as DTC once said "only Councillors can change things" .  The problem is we recruit so many useless Councillors that in some cases Clerks have to take up the slack and do extra work.  However, if in amongst these "useless Councillors" there is one with an enquiring mind some clerks can react and single that Councillor out as a trouble maker.   The only deciding factor then  is how many you have got in your gang.  What I am saying is that whilst  I recognise the OPs dilemma,  I also recognise RAGs point of view (as I have been there) ... well currently still am

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There’s a flip-side to CPs point about a clerk / council seeking to suppress a Cllr by restricting email functionality.
It is also possible that the Cllr can withdraw their consent to be served papers electronically.
So a ‘council’ or parts thereof might think they are being clever by suppressing an individual Cllr but what could then happen is they will find themselves incurring time and mileage expense of hand delivering summons / agenda etc.
It’s a 2 way street.
By far and away the simplest, most effective and sensible approach is NOT to create barriers but rather to strive to understand and accommodate alternative views.
Often the most vocal for inclusivity are actually the least invested in it.

Answer 4

It’s all starting to become clearer now…..

A PC with a vice chair that wants to remove other Cllrs….

It is quite clear now where the real problem lays….

Answer 5

A bit late to comment - but just catching up on the posts. Having seen similar behaviour in the past I was curious when you said the assistant clerk had resigned. Made me wonder about the makeup of you council. How many staff do you employ - do you have a separate RFO? How big is your council, and what is the Chairman doing about the situation? Is this another council where the Chairman and his/her cronies run the show? Perhaps this 'vexatious' cllr is doing what they are supposed to do?

Answer 6

We had a Councillor like that who just wouldn’t accept that they had no right to question things or put motions on the Agenda also they wouldn’t accept the authority of the Clerk to run the Parish Council
To prevent further trouble making the Councillor was “ sent to Coventry “ and the only way they could get information was via the FOI

Even when responding to FOI requests both the Clerk and the Chair publicly resorted to personal attacks and refused to provide information or claimed it was lost

Eventually the Councillor self reported the complaints and a prolonged and extensive  investigation concluded the councillor had done nothing wrong as the wild claims about the said councillor some of which were extremely serious were proved to be false as the Councillor had clear evidence to the contrary
No action was taken about the people responsible for misleading the Monitoring Officer and the other month at a Public meeting the Clerk accused the Chair of being a liar and nothing happened
I was that Councillor so as you can see there can be two sides to every coin