The full council meeting to approve the 2022-23 Bridgend Council budget was held yesterday – you can watch it here. The second part with the vote is available here.
Normally, budget votes and debates are a formality. The range of budget cuts and savings were also relatively tame compared to previous years.
However, opposition to parts of the budget clearly concerned the council and officers enough to try and force the budget through.
Better-than-expected settlement welcomed; council tax freeze “not enough”
Cllr. Alex Williams (Ind, Penprysg) welcomed the Welsh Government’s better-than-expected local government settlement.
However, he believed opposition councillors were at a disadvantage because they don’t get to see the full picture of the council’s finances when coming up with alternative budget proposals. This means opposition councillors are effectively forced to accept council budgets as a done deal with no criticism.
Future budgets should focus on protecting frontline services and force directorates to justify their expenditure. He urged councillors to vote against the budget until these kinds of commitments are made.
Additionally, while the council tax freeze was welcomed, Cllr. Williams called for a council tax cut to help deal with the cost of living crisis.
Councillors “legally-obligated to approve a balanced budget”; voting against “possible Code of Conduct breach”
The council’s monitoring office (chief legal adviser), Kelly Watson (I’ve timestamped the relevant bit here, because you need to see it for yourselves), said changes to the constitution approved by the council in 2018 mean that any proposed changes or amendments to the council’s budget need to be tabled three days ahead of the meeting (pdf – p83). No proposals were received.
Councillors would therefore have to vote on the only proposal on the table. Councillors also have a statutory/legal requirement to set a balanced budget and not doing so threatened to “bring the council into disrepute”.
While it was “a matter for individual members on how they vote” the monitoring officer pointed out that voting against the budget – as Cllr. Williams suggested – could breach Paragraph 8 of the councillor’s code of conduct (below).
In short, if councillors disagree with officers’ advice (in this case to pass the budget), and can’t offer a good explanation for their decision, then they could breach the Code of Conduct (and potentially face a Public Services Ombudsman investigation).
While this qualifies as advice from the proper officer, if you were unkind you could judge it to be a threat.
The Mayor, Cllr. John Spanswick (Lab, Brackla), therefore ruled Cllr. Williams’ proposal was out of order as it didn’t comply with the BCBC’s constitution.
Cllr. Matthew Voisey (Con, Oldcastle) said it was right for changes to be tabled and proposed in the public domain. The Constitution was changed to stifle debate and stop members from being able to come to the council chamber to have their say. This was ruled out of order too.
The Chief Executive, Mark Shephard, made an intervention saying that the council’s procedures allowed proposals to be put forward to give officers enough time to judge whether they would lead to a balanced budget. A council tax cut, for example, would require big budget adjustments.
Cllr. Williams’ point from the start – which he repeated – was that there hadn’t been enough time to consider the budget given the local government settlement wasn’t published until the end of December 2021.
Councillors were also given just 23 hours to submit alternative proposals after the final budget papers were published.
When moving to a recorded vote, the monitoring officer told members that she expected a full written explanation from any member voting against the budget contrary to officer advice.
There was some dissent during and after the vote.
Cabinet Member Cllr. Charles Smith (Lab, Lllangewydd & Brynhyfryd) said while casting his vote that councillors voting against the budget need to justify their lack of support for maintaining school budgets on social media – a comment that wasn’t challenged by the Mayor.
Despite voting in favour, Cllr. Pam Davies (Lab, Bryntirion Laleston & Merthyr Mawr) said “we were all adults” and each members’ vote was their own.
Complaint to be made to the Welsh Government
Since the vote, Cllr. Alex Williams has emailed the council’s senior officers demanding an explanation. You can read the full email here.
“Yesterday’s Full Council meeting was the most absurd meeting with which I’ve been involved in five years as a County Councillor, and never have I ever seen such interference in the democratic process from statutory officers of this local authority.
“Never before have officers been so influential in changing the opinions of democratically elected Councillors who, in a representative democracy, act principally in the best interests of the residents who elect them in their respective wards. As Cllr Pam Davies rightly said in her brief but powerful intervention, ‘all of our votes are our own,’ regardless of our political differences, and we are all there for the same reason – to represent residents to the best of our abilities. To insist that Members do not vote against a budget on which they disagree for risk of falling foul of the local authority’s Code of Conduct is absolute folly.
“….In my personal opinion, this was clear interference in the democratic process, and as a result, I have no option but to seek further advice from the Welsh Government Minister for Local Government on what options are available to make a formal complaint. Given our previously positive personal and professional relationship, I find this a highly regrettable but necessary action to take.”
– Cllr. Alex Williams
He also asked whether members who’ve voted against budgets in the past – 20 in 2021 and 10 in 2020 – have ever needed to give a formal explanation to officers for their decisions.
“For the purposes of consistency, I would be grateful if you could confirm what action was taken against these Councillors and whether any of these colleagues had to provide written reasons for their vote. This seems highly unorthodox and I do not recall at any time having to provide written reasoning for my vote or witnessing the influence which the statutory officers of Council wielded in using forceful language which were tantamount to threats. This clearly influenced fellow colleague in how they voted yesterday.”
– Cllr. Alex Williams
