Fears of an undemocratic ‘trend’ after Notts councillor insinuates suspending meeting

Nottinghamshire County Council’s Governance and Ethics Committee met for the first time as a new Reform-led authority.

The meeting discussed various reports and reviews into the authority’s governance in the 2024/25 financial year.

But before the main bulk of the meeting got under way, the committee’s chair, Coun Jim Vernon (Ref), made a statement as an ‘opening motion’ about the potential for him, as chairman, to suspend meeting’s agenda and the role of the committee.

Coun Vernon said: “In the public interest of transparency and efficiency I could move to suspend, under standing order 25.2 [in meeting procedure rules], today’s agenda.

“However, because so much work has been put into this and so many people are in attendance, we’ll stick with the agenda as published.”

This was met with confusion from opposition members, with Coun Steve Carr (Ind) asking: “Why would you want to suspend standing orders and stop this committee – I just can’t understand why you’ve said that?”

Coun Vernon replied that he had not stopped the meeting and was continuing, before moving on to giving thanks to previous administrations for the “great” achievements made in areas such as children’s services.

Coun Bruce Laughton (Con) later asked the monitoring officer for confirmation on what meeting procedure regulations “allows the chairman to do”.

The monitoring officer confirmed under procedure rules for committee and sub-committee meetings that “councillors must speak strictly to the subject under discussion.

Coun Laughton and Coun Keith Girling (Con), who was substituting for Coun Mike Adams that day, then called Coun Vernon’s previous insinuation he had the power to ‘suspend’ the meeting’s agenda items “nonsense”.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Coun Girling said he feels the Reform authority are “closing down debate” in meetings.

Opposition members previously voiced their concern for meetings becoming “undemocratic” after the authority’s June Cabinet meeting left opposition questions unanswered.

The council’s leader, Mick Barton (Ref) has spoken extensively in meetings about his ‘open-door’ policy for councillors to ask questions about ongoing works outside of council meetings in efforts to ‘streamline’ council meetings, previously telling the LDRS his policy was not aiming to “stifle debate”.

Earlier this month (July 10), the authority’s deputy leader, John Doddy (Ref), was accused of time wasting and ‘filibustering’ in a full council meeting, where he spent over 20 minutes replying to a question about women’s health which ultimately stopped other councillor questions being asked within the one-hour question slot.

Coun Girling said: “I don’t like the trend [scrutiny] is going down. As opposition we’re there to look at what [the council] is doing and scrutinise it, highlight concerns, that’s our jobs.

“To quote a constitutional [meetings policy] as a reason, and let the meeting go ahead anyway, when the policy [Coun Vernon] quoted was completely wrong.

“That’s why the Governance and Ethics Committee is so important, that’s where you look at the constitution… it needs to be really open and transparent.”

Coun Laughton also said he thinks the Reform group is trying to lessen the democratic process, saying: “Some of it’s because lack of experience… it’s our responsibility to ensure the democratic process is maintained. Without those checks and balances not in place, the wrong decisions could be made for people in Nottinghamshire.

“If they continue down this road of trying to suppress democracy, they will damage the council for a very long time.”

Coun Jim Vernon was contacted for comment.