Brackla Community Council remains locked in a months-long argument over whether a member has been disqualified.
Councillors are, by law, automatically disqualified from being a member of a local authority if they haven’t attended a meeting for 6 months. To avoid this, councillors can be granted an official leave of absence which “resets the clock”.
A Labour community councillor – who hasn’t attended a meeting since September 2022 – had requested a leave of absence for health reasons. In itself that isn’t controversial. The dispute revolves around whether a meeting held in October 2022 to discuss this was quorate (“quorate” meaning having enough people in attendance).
Independent councillors have argued the meeting was improperly recorded and constituted, which means the six-month deadline passed in March 2023 without being “reset”.
Advice sought from the community council body, One Voice Wales, has since backed the view of the council’s administrators that the councillor remains a member. However, Independent councillors argue this was based on inaccurate minutes.
Why’s that important? There’s a legal grey area over whether a meeting that’s properly opened and adjourned – even if there aren’t enough members present – counts as a meeting towards the 6-month deadline.
Although I can’t think of anything more Welsh than something that ought to be straightforward being bogged down in arguments over procedure, rules and standing orders, the dispute has become increasingly ill-tempered.
There have been accusations of improper management of meetings, improper conduct by individual members and arguments and counter-arguments over whether the matter has been settled or whether it can be discussed further.
Although community councils are supposed to be non-partisan (it often doesn’t work out that way), Labour currently has a single-seat majority, with Independents having won two by-elections to the community council in 2023.
(Update: 03/06/2023) – The councillor in question has now resigned. It’s probably the right decision for all involved and I’m sure everyone hopes they have all the rest and recovery time they need to deal with the health problems that preceded this. They are completely blameless and the entire situation should never have been allowed to get to this point by those who should’ve known better.
(Update: 21/07/2023) – Independent candidate, Chris Cadogan, won the subsequent by-election.
