TLDR
As a charity trustee of a village hall where the PC meets, can I take part in a discussion and vote on moving the meeting from the village hall, since it has a direct financial impact on the hall?
Background
Our parish has two community buildings - a village hall and a community centre, both of which are charities and run by different management committees. Out of 15 parish councillors, 5 are trustees for the hall and 5 are trustees for the community centre. Two other councillors are married to trustees, so you have 6 councillors with an 'other registerable interest' for each building from the perspective of table 2 of interests in our adopted code of conduct. The PC meets in the village hall.
There is an agenda item on the next meeting to move the PC meetings from the hall to the community centre.
According to our standing order 13c councillors must 'withdraw from a meeting when it is considering a matter in which he has another interest if so required by the Council’s code of conduct.'
Our code of conduct states in 6. 'Where a matter arises at a meeting which directly relates to the financial interest or wellbeing of one of your Other Registerable Interests (as set out in Table 2), you must disclose the interest. You may speak on the matter only if members of the public are also allowed to speak at the meeting but otherwise must not take part in any discussion or vote on the matter and must not remain in the room unless you have been granted a dispensation. If it is a ‘sensitive interest’, you do not have to disclose the nature of the interest.
The clerk has previously advised that this means when the PC is discussing matters relating to either building which involves potentially hiring that building or some other financial element, the councillors with an interest must withdraw.
There have been grumbles about this in the past because members of the public are allowed to speak at the meeting but people have still complied with the clerks advice.
Now we are in a situation where if all 12 councillors with an interest withdraw from the meeting we will be inquorate, so the clerks advice is that councillors must request a dispensation to participate in the discussion and vote. My interpretation of the code of conduct is that since members of the public are allowed to speak at the meeting, all councillors should be able to remain, take part in the discussion, and vote.
I've read other answers to similar questions on this site and the sense I get is that some users might not even consider being a trustee to be an interest, though our code of conduct clearly states that being 'a member or position of management in a body directed to charitable purposes' is an 'Other Registerable Interest'. My question therefore is whether the wording above from the code of conduct means I have to leave the meeting, even though members of the public are allowed to speak at the meeting?
