UNLAWFUL COUNCIL MEETINGS. POST2.

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UNLAWFUL COUNCIL MEETINGS POST 2.

POSTED  BY KENNETH LYONS.

THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES TO THE PARISH AND RESIDENTS.

Some might say ”so what its no big deal”, it has the potential to become a big deal if that meeting faces a legal challenge at any point, for the following reasons,

1.   The council convened an illegal Council Meeting and therefore had no legal authority to conduct any council business.

2.  During that illegal meeting the Council co-opted a new member and because that member was co-opted during a Council meeting that had no legal authority to conduct Council business, that member is not a lawfully co-opted Parish Councillor and is therefore still simply a member of the public.

3.  For approximately 17 months and probably as many Council meetings the council have had a member of the public sitting on the Council taking part in Council deliberations and taking part in voting to approve or reject items of Council business.

4.  By definition every council meeting that member of the public has attended and taken part in is also illegal because under legislation and the Council’s Standing Orders, a member of the public is not permitted to take part in Council business and deliberations because ‘standing orders are in force’ and is certainly not allowed to vote on Council business. Members of the public have a vote at Parish Meetings not Council Meetings

5.  Every month an item of council business is the approval of Minutes relating to the previous meeting, which in my opinion, potentially generates it’s own legal problems because the previous meeting with a member of the public sitting on the Council was in itself unlawful. That will continue to be the case until the fault is corrected.

6. When Council minutes are approved and entered into the ‘Minutes Book’ those minutes, in law are sacrosanct, they cannot be rescinded or amended. Every Councillor has approved those minutes as an accurate and honest account of the previous meeting. The problem with that is, the minutes are not an honest or accurate account of the previous meeting because they do not identify that a member of the public took part in the meeting contrary to legal provisions.

My understanding is those minutes cannot be altered or rescinded without the formal approval of the High Court, the potential financial risk to the public purse of Preston must be huge. This would make the cost of an audit by the Audit Commission pall into insignificance.

There are many other potential consequences of convening illegal Council meetings, which we do not intend to cover here, suffice it to say they are many and during such meetings individual Councillors are legally responsible for their actions and decisions during those meetings, they are not recognised as acting in their capacity as Parish Councillors because the meeting was not legally convened and they are therefore simply members of the public, who do not have any legal authority to commit to binding Council decisions!

Councillors may cry that they didn’t know, but they are required to know, that’s why they are there, to manage the affairs of the Parish. The fact that they haven’t bothered to find out what should happen isn’t a defence.

I wrote to the Parish Council following the October 2012 Council Meeting and in time for the November Council Meeting, informing the Council of the error. At that point the Council was in a position to correct the error without it ever being entered into the Minutes Book. The council could have listed the co-option process for November and co-opted the new councillor legally. There has never been any acknowledgement or response to that letter and as far as I am aware the error has never been corrected.

It is possible the Council may get away without the meeting without being challenged, if that turns out to be the case they will have been very fortunate. On the other hand if the Council continue to disregard its legal obligations it will at some point have to answer for its actions and that puts the public purse of Preston at unnecessary risk.

Its time for the Council to carry out a full ‘Internal Procedural Audit’, identify the points of failure and correct them, when they have been corrected the Council should install a monitoring system to ensure continued future compliance with its legal duties and procedural obligations. It is after all the Council that has responsibility to ensure the legislation is observed and therefore any failing is down to the Parish Council and individual Councillors. For far too many years we have had a Council that ignores the laws it is supposed to observe and in doing so has managed to waste more than £20,000 of public funds belonging to the residents of Preston.

Any ‘Corporate Body’ is required to operate with the requirements of the laws, which are appropriate to it, and, it’s their responsibility to ensure the organisation complies with the requirements placed upon it. In this respect a Parish Council is no different to any other ‘Corporate Body’.

It’s worth noting that since the issue was brought to the Council’s attention in October 2012, it has since that date posted all ‘Notice of Meetings’ in accordance to the provisions of the LGA 1972. This shows the Council are aware of its past flaws and have acted in this instance to correct it, if only in part, the consequences of the flaw have not been addressed and are therefore continuing to mount. If the council had been faultless in giving 2 clear days notice and it was legal for them to do so, in my opinion it would still be giving just 2 clear days notice, if only to prove a point.

There is an error in the above paragraph, the Council does not actually comply with the requirements of the LGA 1972 when posting the ‘Notice of Council Meeting’. We will be covering those other failings in a future post but for now we are only dealing with the requirement for 3 clear days notice to be given. Though it must be said the omissions that are currently occurring make the current Council Meetings just as unlawful.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish we will post on your experience without your identity being released, or not post anything if you simply want to share your experience it’s entirely up to you. We would love to hear your story, your not alone, there are a number of us, let us compare notes and grow as a group.