Is a councillor's vote transferable?

Question

A husband and his wife are councillors on the same council, with the wife as chair.

The husband is given permission to leave a meeting early and in doing so 'gifts' his vote to the chair.

Clearly a nonsensical situation and not surprisingly I cannot find any mention in statute.

Is the action ultra-vires?

Answer 1

What do the standing orders say?

I think most would have something along the lines of...

"Subject to a meeting being quorate, all questions at a meeting shall be decided by a majority of the councillors or councillors with voting rights present and voting."

The emphasis on present and voting!

Comments

This is indeed spelled out by "Knowles on Local Authority Meetings" - a consequence of the clause that you quoted includes "Nor may any individual council member vote by proxy: they must be present at a meeting if they wish their vote to count". Although you're quite right that the sentence is often included in standing orders, it is actually part of the legislation, so applies whether or not  it is included in standing orders. LGA 1972 Sch 12 39 (1)

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Thanks for the info. I didn't know about "Knowles on Local Authority Meetings". Mmm- not cheap though!  My copy of Arnold-Baker didn't include the proxy info directly.

Answer 2

are you studying for the Community Governance qualification with the SLCC as this sounds like a situation from the course work as well as your other question relating to a member of the public being invited to join in with the council meeting...?

Comments

Your suspicions are correct. Congratulations on spotting the similarities. My questions relate to an assignment in Local Council Law and Procedures.