What's the situation when there are too many Councillors?

Question

Hello,

What is the situation regarding validity of meetings, etc. when more Cllrs are co-opted than the number of vacancies? Unable to find a similar question, so I assume it's a very rare occurrence!

Situation now resolved, due to a resignation, but it

lasted for several months.

Thank you

Answer 1

The responsibility for determining the number of councillors falls to the electoral officer of the district council, so a local council cannot alter its number of members. If more councillors are co-opted than the number of vacancies, the last person to be co-opted could not become a councillor. This doesn't invalidate the meetings held, but could result in many minor breaches of the legislation. This should not have been allowed to happen, there is really no excuse.

The resignation has addressed the numerical issue, but the person who was not validly appointed does not automatically become a councillor and the vacancy should be handled in the normal way, i.e. notice of vacancy, invitation to petition for an election etc.

Comments

Spot on!

The person(s) co-opted above the allocation of available seats (at the time of co-option) is not properly appointed as a post holder.
The situation in relation to excessive number of Cllrs may be resolved by resignation but the issue of improper co-option still exists (until resolved.)

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Thank you.
Yes, I know it should never have happened and had I still been a member I can assure you it wouldn't have.

Shocked that it did, but at least I'm relieved that the meetings and, presumably the decisions taken at them, weren't invalid. Will pass this information on to those concerned.

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I'm not going to ask whether there were any decisions on which the non-councillor's vote swayed the outcome!

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An afterthought. If there was a meeting at which the attendance of the non-councillor was required in order to achieve a quorum, the business of that meeting would be invalid. I hope this scenario didn't arise.

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Thankfully, that doesn't appear to have been the case!

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Strikes me as a potentially quite "major" breech. On what basis would a meeting/s, with the possibility of an incorrectly appointed extra "councillor" partaking in decisions, be valid? How could this situation not have been queried immediately?

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Because it wasn't known about immediately!
A sensitive situation, no longer involved so I don't know all the details of meetings.
Thank you to all who have replied.

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So not a single councillor or the TC new how many seats there should have been? Went on for several months! That's novel, even for a town/parish council.

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From a clerking point of view, this is a serious oversight, but in my experience, many councillors come from a voluntary organisation background, where additional trustees/committee members are appointed as and when required, so the average councillor in a small council would probably not be aware of the detail of the legislation in this regard.

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Not really accepting excuses for this, from either side. It is a serious lapse in governance. I feel it also says a lot for the sector if you gauge this to be the "average".

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I've worked with at least 75 councillors across four councils. Of those, maybe half a dozen might have had sufficient awareness to notice something like this. Councillors rely on the clerk to steer them through the legislative minefield. My councils are certainly typical of the whole sector within my district. I can't comment beyond that, although anecdotally, from the hundreds of questions we've seen on this forum, I suspect that my experiences are not atypical.

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Then your experience of councils is even worse than mine! Yes far too many councillors are far too reliant on their clerks. Councillors should also be aware that they, not the TC, are responsible for their decisions. But, of all the knowledge that many  councillors lack this would be the last on my list, because the one thing most councillors do avail themselves of is how many votes they need to carry a motion. In any event, surely you are not trying to say that it is acceptable that the TC was unaware of the number of seats on the council? As I said it says a lot about the sector.

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If by the TC you mean the Clerk, there wasn't one at the time, and as far as I'm aware there still isn't one. That's part of the problem.