Co-opting councillors

Question

We have three vacancies and having advertised widely have three potential councillors who in fact have come from exiting councillors networks. Providing these individuals meet the stipulated criteria that would have allowed them to stand at election and are proposed and seconded by existing councillors, is any further assessment or discussion required?

Answer 1

Each candidate needs to be voted upon. If you have three vacancies and three candidates and there is a majority in favour, they are in.

If there are more candidates than vacancies then there is full legal procedure to follow.

We do an informal interview at our staffing committee (open to the public) - to ensure they know what commitment they need to make and our current work, their background, experience etc, then a quick interview at full council with councillors vote at both sessions, this ensures anyone in the public who knows the candidates and has concerns can raise them before councillors vote on them.

Answer 2

It is for the council to decide how to handle the co-option process, once the vacancy has been advertised by the principal authority.  There is no prescribed format unless your Standing Orders include one.  The NALC model doesn't.

The best advice is simply to be as open and transparent as you can and treat each applicant the same.  Some councils use a written application process, others invite the candidates to address the council to make their case.  There are pitfalls to both approaches, as the written application may have been written by somebody else and the presentation format merely tests somebody's ability to stand up in front of strangers and deliver a presentation, which may or may not be an essential element of the role of councillor.

As long as they meet the legal requirements for office and are willing to sign up to the code of conduct, they can simply be voted in at a meeting.

Answer 3

If there are only enough Cllrs to fill the vacancies and no more the PC could agree to co opt them  by resolution but it would be unwise to do so without some form of interview & assessment

Potentially a PC could get into trouble if they refuse to co opt  somebody they view as a Troublemaker" without  having some feedback from an interview etc   The monitoring Officer from the Principal Authority could accuse the PC of failing to make adequate progress in filling the vacancy and order a by election.  In such circumstances the Trouble maker could  be the only candidate standing in an uncontested election and be elected unopposed and the PC could do nothing about it.