Can an individual councillor's actions be discussed at a Council meeting and criticised for them?

Question

A councillor took a decision which should  then have been brought to Full Council for resolving. However this was 'overlooked' even though it involved spending of over £1500 [over the £500 limit}, the work went ahead without Full Council's knowledge. I see this as an error by the Clerk not of the individual Councillor. Would this be correct?

Answer 1

Unless there is a specific provision in your standing orders, no councillor can make unilateral decisions, not even the the Chair (except to call an Extraordinary  or Extraordinary General meeting) .

Normally, the Clerk should have satisfied  himself (or herself) that the spending had been subject to a resolution.. However,  we don't know if the Cllr decided to bypass Standing Orders and regs deliberately or out of ignorance. For that reason it would be justifiable to ask the Cllr to clarify this at a full meeting of the council.

Comments

The Councillor plus whoever signed the cheque are in the wrong, strictly I believe the Councillor could be made to reimburse the Parish Council
Before you do anything else get advice from the Auditor if you haven’t got one you could try the Monitoring Officer