By-election for vacant parish seats

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2015 13:39:12 GMT peterl said:

Your council is quorate and can co-opt. They are required to do so. If they do not within 35 working days of the election, the district council may take action to call fresh elections or appoint councillors themselves. The seats will not be allowed to remain vacant.

This is correct. We had a vacancy & advertised for any interested people, got 2, voted on & co-opted one.

Saves the cost of a byelection. But if we had no expressions of interest then it would have been up to an elector to request a byelection, in which there may have been only one candidate (or possibly none, or possibly 100...)

speaking as chair of my parish council.

[gwynthegriff]

Jul 7, 2015 10:18:28 GMT @boogieeck said:

Theoretically so and if this were the case in this instance the council could co-opt to fill the vacancies. But they don't feel the need. One major obstacle to bodies such as these carrying out the work they do is the presence of busybodies. If democratically elected there is quite rightly nothing that can be done to prevent them, but if they have not been elected the council may be very wise to avoid wilfully adding to their numbers from among those who could not get a democratic mandate even when the bar was set this low. If that changes, and they need eg. an accountant of a digger driver, they can always co-opt later.

Indeed. This issue has arisen several times during my time as a Parish Clerk (3 different councils).

Generally, the best outcomes - in order of preference - are:

1. The vacancies are filled by co-option of people who make a significant contribution (and who, generally, previously felt themselves unsuitable in some way)

2. The vacancies are filled by co-option of people who make only a minor contribution but don't create difficulties

3. The vacancies are left unfilled

4. Local troublemakers demand to be co-opted

[J.G.Harston]

It gets better. In the 15th June council meeting council agreed to go forward to co-option, and the clerk would come to the next meeting for approval to place advertisements. At today's council meeting council agreed the minutes of the 15th June meeting, then four items later voted not to give approval to the clark to place the advertisements for the co-option vacancies.   (where's palm-face emoji when you need one?)

They then fell to arguing that they should have a boundary review instead of dealing with the vacancies.

The meeting was well-attended by the public, almost as many public as members. Several expressed disappointment that the council was represented by the all-yorkshire minor councils group at the potash meeting last week instead of representing themselves. There was good input from a member of the public who's been persuing damage to a local SINC salt marsh, and interest in feeding in to the district council's gambling licensing policy review.

[J.G.Harston]

Jul 7, 2015 20:38:23 GMT @boogieeck said:

JG, can you declare any interests? Are you a member? Do you hope to nominate anyone to be co-opted? Did you seek election? Would you be co-opted if asked?

Whitby is my home town. I've been planning on getting involved locally for some time. I was thinking of standing for election in May, but was busy elsewhere. When I saw the six unfilled seats I planned to stand, then they weren't advertised for election, then a councillor didn't take his seat and one by-election was called, amid arguments whether both vacancies in that ward should have an election, or all seven vacancies across the town, or just the one "casual" vacancy. I got my nominations, but my paper was invalid because I've moved house too recently and my registration only appears on the register this friday, one week after close of nominations last friday.

People have been arguing in circles, are the unfilled seats the same as casual vacancies? Is the councillor who didn't take his seat an unfilled seat or a casual vacancy? I thought a vacancy occured when a councillor ceased to be a councillor, with sort or explies you have to take you seat before it can become a casual vacancy. And the arguments about whether to co-opt, whether the dealine to co-opt has expired, whether the deadline preventing co-option has expired. I'm a computer programmer, surely this is somethnig that can be written down as an unambiguous flow chart.

[peterl]

If a seat is not filled following an election due to insufficient nominations, this is not a casual vacancy but an ordinary vacancy. If a councillor is elected but does not take up their seat, this is a casual vacancy.

[J.G.Harston]

This is getting weird... According to the minutes of last month's meeting, which I attended, the council resolved to ask the district council to hold elections for all seven vacancies, including the casual vacancy (scroll to the bottom). I was at that meeting, I don't remember that. And if that happened, why is there only one election in three weeks? And why did today's meeting apprently approve minutes of last month's meeting that approved going to co-option (scroll to the middle), then subsequently disauthorised the clerk from advertising said vacancies?

[peterl]

Perhaps you should get hold of a copy of the council's standing orders. My town council has a rule that prohibits reconsideration of a matter once decided for six months, you might well find that there is a similar rule.