Interpretation of LGA revisions by Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007

Question

This pulls together a number of related threads regarding elections, co-option, appointments as reflected in the LGA revised version

The revised edition of the LGA  includes significant changes with regard to elected and appointed councillors.

In section 15 (1) and 15(6) specifically indicates that only an elected member can be chairman or vice chairman. 15(1) specifically references that the election is annual which therefore implies at the annual council meeting.

However if the chairman resigns mid term then the successor is elected as per 15(6) then I presume 15(1) still applies.

In the original act 15(10 simply states that the chairman is elected annually from among the councillors. So the question arises why was this changed to specifically identify elected councillors?

16(1) is modified from the original clause to include "elected councillors"  Again begs the question why it was bothered to be changed from the original which merely stated "councillors".

With respect to 16a(1) "A parish council may appoint persons to be councillors of the council."

this is clearly a reference to what is generally known as co-option since co-option is appointment of councilors by the parish council..

In fact I am unable to find any  reference to "co-option" in the LGA revised or original act.

The so called term "co-option£ does not seem to be in the act anywhere and certainly the actual process was never legislated for. I cannot even find the phrase "as soon as practicable" which gets bandied about by NALC et al in their recommendations/guidance

I think that 16a is really about paving the way to differentiate between elected and appointed/co-opted councillors in certain situations. I don't therefore differentiate between the terms co-opted and appointed unless someone can point me to a definitive legislative definition of either.The whole tone of the Amendments set out by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Care Act seems specifically aimed at differentiating elected vrs appointed/co-opted members

Given the general dislike of co-option as a democratic process I can see that having appointed/co-opted members participating in respect of Health issues might not go down with the electorate

So can anyone point to definitive definitions for appointed, co-opted terms in the legislation rather than opinion?.


Regards

CSM

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Answer 1

It might be helpful to be more specific. There is nothing that can be described as the Local Government Act. Much of the legislation that affects local councils is in the Local Government Act 1972. But there are earlier and later acts that also affect local councils, and as you indicate some of the later acts amend the 1972 act.

The SLCC gives a firm and explicit answer to the questions at https://www.radyr.org.uk/council/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/02/Co-opted-member-as-chairman.pdf

As I understand it, the legislation may not use the word "co-option" but has provisions that carry the import of "If no poll is claimed in time, the council fills the vacancy as soon as practicable". This process is widely known as co-option, as you say. The element "as soon as practicable" may also not be in the legislation, but lawyers will advise that if a local authority has an obligation to do something, then unless there is a good reason otherwise, what it is obliged to do should be done as soon as practicable. The law is not just the statutes, it is also common law, case law and lawyers interpretation of how statutes should be read (in effect, opinions on how a judge would read the statutes were a case to come to court).

I agree that co-option is a second rate way of appointing councillors, and should be avoided so far as possible. However, the cost of a poll runs to thousands of pounds, and could become a significant burden on citizens. Also, I think it would be difficult to sustain interest in repeated by-elections for parish councils.

Comments

You effectively underline the frustration I was having at determining what is actually legislated for or not. It seems pointless to to update (make revisions) to legislation on a public website and then not explicitly flag that it is not in force. At the same time the lack of precise definitions of terms or using terms that are not explicitly defined is a nightmare. As a recently elected  councillor I have observed directly some dubious practices and read about many more. Many of which revolve around this whole co-option business.
Trying to improve transparency and engagement with the local community is  like climbing Everest  and definitely not helped by ambiguous and ill defined legislation and guidelines. Last year for example the council resolved to adopt the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities as if it was an option it could disregard!!!!  I probably should not even start on village greens and managed trusts.
Thanks for the explanation though, maybe I will have a word with my MP :>)

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I do sympathise with your concerns. The situation was bad enough when there was a standards board to make judgements on bad practice. But all that has been swept away. This site seeks to promote exchange of ideas so that councillors seeking improvement can look for clarification of the issues and compare experiences. Although this site inevitably highlights the things that go wrong, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that many councils work conscientiously and mostly lawfully for the good of their citizens.