Co-opting a non parish councillor

Question

We had a parish councillor who caused a great deal of problems in our parish and resigned as he was exposed as a cad & a bully.

He sat on the burial committee but of course had to come off due to resignation. Then to our surprise the burial committee (comprised sing of 3 parishes) without the knowledge of the three PC's co-opted him back on to help with some form filling for a grant. The 2 representatives for the PC he was on did not want him but were out voted by the other 2 parishes.

Is this legal and could there be repurcussions of this action? Seems odd and spurious as the others were his buddies!!

Answer 1

Certainly as he resigned as a councillor, he would not have any right to vote on this committee and it seems very strange to have a burial committee consisting of 3 councils.  This seems to be to be an external body rather than a committee in the traditional sense and I can't find anything that discusses non-Councillor membership of external bodies....

The other consideration is that non-Councillors are not allowed to be appointed to committees that regulate and control the council's finances (LGA 1972, s102 (3)) and if it is a committee that sets the burial fees and therefore the income of the council, you could argue that he is not allowed to be a member.   However, if he has just been appointed for the specific task of completing a grant, then there was no need to even co-opt him in my mind, he can help complete the grant application without the need to be a member.

The normal protocol is that membership is decided at the Annual Parish Council meeting in May and that membership is agreed by the full council - you could use that tack?

Comments

Thanks Mrs Abster; the problem is that we have a lot of 'clever' newbies who just don't know policy or procedure and thus we get this happening.
I think he has taken the hint and gone but the 3 parishes involved just involves people that are outside the area and bored and think htey can do what they want. It drives me mad to have to keep advising them and do appreciate your input to back up my worries