An Isle of Wight councillor has accused County Hall’s monitoring officer of giving unlawful advice on last month’s chair vote – but the council insists the ‘constitution was followed’.
Councillor Peter Spink, who represents Freshwater North and Yarmouth, said there is a ‘wealth of evidence’ that Francis Fernandez’s advice to Councillor Karl Love, the council’s former chair, that he should leave the chamber during the chair vote at the 21st May full council meeting, was ‘wrong in law’.
The meeting saw the election of the Alliance group’s Cllr Ian Dore as the local authority’s new chair, with 19 councillors voting in favour of him and 17 backing the incumbent.
Before the vote, Mr Fernandez said:
“If there is a nomination for a sitting chair, then there is case law that suggests that that nomination is void. Under the Local Government Act, the chair in a meeting must preside – that’s a requirement.
“So that’s why we ask the chair to leave. Otherwise, if the chair was here, they’d need to preside and they couldn’t preside because any nomination for them would be void. That is a strong legal position.”
Councillor Spink told the press:
“Prior to the meeting of full council on 21st May, the council chair was advised by the monitoring officer that he should not preside or vote in the election of a new chair. The chair accepted this advice in good faith and left the chamber.
Article continues below this advertisement “There is a wealth of evidence, however, that this advice was wrong in law and is contrary to the Local Government Act 1972, the standing advice of the National Association of Local Councillors, and paragraph 7.20 of 11th Edition of Arnold Baker on Local Government Administration.
“We all make mistakes, but what is concerning is that over 2 weeks later, the monitoring officer is still ‘researching’ the matter.
“It is par for the course in my experience, for the council to kick such matters into the long grass in the hope that they will be forgotten; I’m sorry to say that they usually are.”
He added the ‘correct action’ for the council to take would be to ‘re-hold’ the full council meeting.
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight Council said:
“The constitution was followed and the then chair was asked not to participate in his own election. There have been challenges about whether that was the correct procedure, and the issue is being considered internally.”
Let’s hope the lawyer’s advice was correct as Ian Dore was the deciding vote on the leadership vote, and that vote kept Alliance in control and devolution on the agenda. Big implications for the Island.
The Tories chair two of the main committees now, and Empowering themselves group got some plum jobs. So the Alliance isn’t “in control”.
Not really sure what the problem is anyway. If the vote was 19 to 17, one person being there or not being there doesn’t affect the outcome?
Spink was sober eh?