Councillors Can Vote If They Miss Part of a Meeting – Most of the Time
Monmouthshire County Council is reviewing rules on voting for councillors who miss parts of meetings, aiming for clarity and fairness.
Monmouthshire, Councillors, Voting, Planning, Legislation
Monmouthshire: There’s been some back and forth about when councillors can vote if they miss part of a meeting. The council is looking to clear things up with some new rules.
So, they’ve been reviewing their constitution, which is just a fancy way of saying the rules they follow. One big question is whether councillors can still vote if they’ve been absent for part of a meeting, especially those joining online.
James Williams, the council’s legal guy, mentioned that there’s nothing in the current rules stopping them from voting. But they want to make it clearer, especially for those important meetings that deal with planning and licensing.
He explained that while councillors should be there for the start and the discussion, the chair can decide to let them vote if they haven’t missed anything crucial. It’s all about using a bit of common sense.
However, for those more serious meetings, like planning ones, there won’t be any leeway. That’s because the decisions made there can have big financial and legal impacts.
There was a recent case where a planning decision got overturned because a councillor attending remotely had dropped off the call during the discussion. A bit of a mess, right?
A councillor from Abergavenny, Tudor Thomas, thinks the rules should be stricter. He pointed out that hybrid meetings, where some are in person and others online, can get a bit silly. People might step away for a moment, and it doesn’t look good.
On the flip side, Peter Strong, the council’s vice chairman, warned against being too harsh. He mentioned that sometimes people just need a quick break, and we don’t want to run into issues with fairness.
He also noted that MPs can vote on big issues without being present for every second of the debate, so we shouldn’t go overboard with these rules.
Along with this voting issue, they’re also looking to make some other changes, like being more transparent about decisions made by senior officers and giving opposition leaders a chance to ask questions at cabinet meetings.
Mr. Williams said they’ll take the committee’s feedback and share it with the group leaders to consider these changes.