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Sirs,

Opinion has been passed to me regarding the grounds upon which a Parish Council Ordinary Meeting may be lawfully abandoned. These are as follows:

1) The departure of a member (or members) such as would leave the Council inquorate,

2) A breach of the peace (although, in most circumstances, this would call only for the suspension of the meeting until such time as order is restored - provided always that this not more than three hours after the opening of the meeting),

3) Health and safety issues (contingent upon fire, flood, act of war or terrorism, or natural disaster of unspecified nature).

The abandonment of a meeting by the Chair on no better grounds than a personal desire not to be filmed or recorded is apparently not a lawful action.

Apparently, the Chair must, at all times, act within statutory authority. There is no statutory authority granting powers to Parish Council Chairs to enable them to abandon meetings on a personal preference or whim.

Please could you offer a definitive clarification on this point?

Regards,

VYD

by (170 points)
edited by

1 Answer

+1 vote
It's difficult to be definitive on this point. The powers of the chairman are almost entirely derived from common law and the standing orders, rather than from statute. So you will need to study the standing orders for your council, although they are probably very similar to others.

The meeting can only be closed when its business has been completed, although this could be achieved by agreeing to defer all remaining items to a future meeting. So, it would seem to me that your case is an adjournment.

The chairman does not have an arbitrary power of adjournment, but can only adjourn the meeting with the agreement of those present. If the chairman unilaterally attempts an adjournment and leaves the meeting, another member can be elected to preside and the meeting can continue.

But if the meeting broke up after the chairman's purported adjournemnt, there is little that can be done. In principle, it appears that arrangements should be made for the meeting to be resumed, although the remaining items could simply be incorporated into another meeting.

It seems that the key point is that if other members wished to continue the meeting, they could have done so.
by (33.6k points)

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