who can speak at parish meeting

Question

a parish meeting held for what is being done and what their views are

 it came to the playground how to fund it. One of our  PC's spoke about what they were doing (she is also on the community trust) before a couple of words were spoken the chairman of the parish council told her not to speak and to wait until the end of the meeting.

Is there any leglislation that gives the chairman the authority to tell a fellow parish councillor to literally 'shut up'. Surely all councillors are equal and also as a resident is entitled to speak freely

Answer 1

It is hard to give a clear answer to many questions about parish meetings, as they are relatively informal affairs. Certainly, the chairing of the meeting should tend to be permissive, and only restrict speakers in order to expedite the business or to avoid excessive time being spent on a single issue. Those are inevitably matters of judgement.  The best I can offer as guidance is the following, taken from the Parish Council Toolkit published by the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors:

"The aim should be to make the meeting a social as well as a formal occasion and make people feel that they are important in their village or town. "

"It is important to frame the agenda so that everyone who has some public standing in the locality has an appointed time when he/she can tell the meeting what he/she is doing. The County Councillor and District Councillor should be invited to speak; there should be a report on the activities of the Parish or Town Council; the trustees of local charities should be given their opportunity and so can representatives of such bodies as the village hall committee, the Women’s Institute or the local sports clubs. This is an excellent opportunity for them to publicise their activities and their friends will be glad to support them. A non-elector may always speak during a meeting with its consent. This should be treated as having been given if there is no objection."

Comments

thank you very much. It is as you say up to the chairman but we now have a situation where residents and PC's alike are frightened to speak because of this intimidating bully.

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It is difficult to deal with a bad chairman. But it is within the power of the council to remove the chairman, at least once every year at the annual meeting. Again, it often comes back to there being people willing to stand as councillors and to fight for a better standard of representation.  There do exist councils that operate with respect for citizens, fellow councillors and staff, so it can be done!