In local election year Councillors’ tenure and ‘casual vacancies’ become vital issues

2013 is local election year in our area and in a little over three months’ time we will be voting in our councillors. All Wiltshire Council seats and about 2,000 parish and town council seats will be up for grabs on Thursday, May 2.

If you want an entertaining taste of town and parish council politics you’d better start reading your Christmas gift copy of JK Rowling’s first novel for adults: The Casual Vacancy. It’s all about what one of her less than public spirited characters thinks of as “the smallness of local politics”.

On her first page, Ms Rowling explains that a ‘casual vacancy’ on a council “is deemed to have occurred (a) when a local councillor fails to make his declaration of acceptance of office within the proper time; or (b) when his notice of resignation is received; or (c) on the day of his death…”  And her book opens with a very sudden death.

Back in the real world, the election of unitary councillors – councillors elected to Wiltshire Council – will be especially important for the Marlborough area.  Not least because once installed they are there for the duration – unless they cause a ‘casual vacancy’.

Following the controversy over the Chairman of the Marlborough Area Board, Councillor Chris Humphries (Aldbourne and Ramsbury), who was censured for bullying a female member of Wiltshire Council’s staff, suspended from the Tory group and then left the party and became an Independent, the question was raised at the Marlborough Area Board as to when a Wiltshire councillor could lose their seat or an Area Board Chairman their chair.

The first answer is that under present rules there is no provision in Wiltshire Council’s constitution – nor under law – to remove a unitary councillor from office.

Under the previous standards regime, Wiltshire Council’s Standards Committee could suspend a councillor for up to six months, and the Standards Board for England (killed off by the coalition government) could disqualify a councillor for up to five years. These powers were removed by the Localism Act 2011 which took effect early in 2012.

It is, of course, still possible for a councillor to disqualify him or herself. They can be convicted of a criminal offence carrying a prison sentence of three or more months; they can take a paid job with their local authority; or they can simply not turn up to meetings for six months – unless given exemption by the full council.  And, as we have seen, they can resign their seat, fail to take it up at all, or die – causing one of those casual vacancies.

So the only real sanction against a Councillor rests with the political parties who can remove a member of their group from a committee, suspend members from their political group and, in extremis, call for them to be ejected from the party.   Those who label themselves ‘independents’ do not even have those sanctions to fear.

It is tempting to imagine all sorts of far-fetched scenarios that could make these rules look a trifle silly. Someone on an accelerated path to dementia but who remains undiagnosed and turns up once every six months could still be considered to represent their constituents as a Wiltshire Councillor…and so on.

The answer about Area Boards is even stranger. There is no procedural method of removing the Chairman of an Area Board. They – and their deputy – are chosen for a full one year term by their fellow Wiltshire Councillors for that area.

The appropriate paragraph of Wiltshire Council’s constitution states: “With the exception of an election year, the chairman and vice-chairman of an area board shall remain in post until their successors are appointed.” The rules make it clear that these are not elected positions, but are appointed positions – despite the fact that the constitution also lays down a voting procedure for Chair and Deputy Chair. The positions are not voted for by ordinary electors.

These rules are specific to the Area Boards. All Wiltshire’s Area Boards are generally considered to be committees of the Council and have to run their meetings in accord with Council rules.  

But the Area Boards are unlike any of the Council’s other committees in that a member of a regular Council committee could be removed from that committee by their political group or by a vote of the full council.  

This means that the ‘Independent Person’ at the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee which censured Councillor Humphries, was unwise or simply wrong to recommend that Jane Scott, the Council’s Leader, should “request the Marlborough Area Board to consider the appropriateness of Councillor Humphries continuing as chairman of the Area Board in the light of these findings.”  

Even if the other three Wiltshire Councillors on the Marlborough Area Board had considered the matter, even if they had agreed it was inappropriate for Councillor Humphries to continue as Chairman, they could not have done anything about his position as the Area Board’s Chairman.