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7 August 2024
Well I thought I would have a rest from blogging about Hughenden Parish Council until September.
But I have to report my continuing concerns about the lawfulness of the co-option of Richard Wilding to Hughenden Parish Council at its Full Council meeting on 23 July 2024 – and subsequent events.
Mr. Wilding is married to Cllr Yvonne Wilding who has been a councillor on HPC since November 2023.
This is a picture of Mr and Cllr Wilding.
I don’t normally mention councillors by name in my blogs but both Mr. and Cllr Wilding stood as parliamentary candidates at the last general election for a political party – the Social Democratic Party. They are therefore politicians and, as the Committee on Standards in Public Life advises, politicians can expect to be in the public eye.
As I mentioned in my previous blog, I raised my concerns about the lawfulness of Mr. Wilding’s co-option at the Council meeting on 23 July. My concerns were brushed aside by the Council and the locum Clerk.
So I wrote to Democratic Services in Bucks Council setting out the full circumstances (as at the bottom of this blog) and asked for advice.
A member of BC’s Monitoring Officer’s team replied saying they could not advise but the Monitoring Officer suggested that I “raise my concerns directly with the Parish Council or the Clerk and that the Council should take its own advice if it was minded to do so.”
So I raised my concerns again to the Council and the locum Clerk – this time in writing – pointing out that there was a risk that, if Mr. Wilding’s co-option was unlawful, Council could assume it was quorate when it was not, and that decisions made with Mr. Wilding as a councillor might be invalid. I said I thought Council should take legal advice on Mr. Wilding’s co-option and I would like to see that advice in writing.
I pointed out that on 6 August, the Chair had summoned councillors to an Extraordinary meeting of the Council; Council was to be asked to approve 3 contracts totaling something like £65,000. I thought it would be prudent for Council to have the legal assurance I proposed before the meeting. One of those contracts was for about £50,000 for the refurbishment of Templewood playground.
The only response has been from Cllr Prashar who said I was “as usual endeavouring to plant the ‘seed of doubt’”.
Perhaps I should mention that 4 years ago, I was concerned about the co-option of a number of councillors on HPC. I raised my concerns repeatedly to the Council and was ignored – in fact some of the councillors were abusive to me.
I persevered and eventually, the Council had to take legal advice. It was advised that 8 councillors – co-opted over 4 years – had been co-opted unlawfully. Those 8 “councillors” had to be told they were not, and never had been, councillors. The Council was reduced to 5 councillors (its quorum). Council had to review every decision the Council had taken over the 4 years and formally “re-resolve” these decisions – a tedious and time-consuming exercise.
Council was also advised to apologise to me in writing – which it did in what I think was a cowardly way through the then Clerk. The then Clerk also apologised directly to me in writing and face-to face – an apology I accepted with no problem.
The point is I do not plant “seeds of doubt”. I raise legitimate concerns which Council should address promptly. And I am sometimes right.
I think it is important for councils to comply with the proper processes for co-options because co-options, unlike elections, provide little opportunity for the electorate to choose who should represent them. Parish councils are very vulnerable to a small clique of councillors co-opting councillors who share their views.
It is particularly important that councils comply with the proper processes when those co-opted are relatives or friends of existing councillors.
In HPC’s case only two of the current councillors were elected through the democratic process. The remainder have been co-opted – and since the beginning of 2022, councillors have been co-opted by a Council of mainly co-opted councillors.
The whole thing gets incestuous.
I should also point out, in response to Cllr Prashar’s comment, that on 23 July the Council had seven councillors. Its quorum is five. Three councillors, myself included, could not attend the Extraordinary Council meeting on 6 August.
Cllr Prashar needed Mr. Wilding to attend the Extraordinary Council meeting as a councillor to make a quorum; she needed Mr. Wilding to vote for her and Cllr Yvone Wilding’s preferred bid for about £50,000 for the refurbishment of the Templewood playground.
On top of everything else, I believe that the tendering process for the playground was unlawful. I have raised my concerns about this with the Council and with the company, the Local Council Consultancy, contracted to provide Council with support on the procurement. I have received no response.
I don’t know what happened at the Extraordinary meeting on 6 August as I was unable to attend.
However, it makes me really uncomfortable that I have raised legitimate concerns that Mr. Wilding was co-opted unlawfully; that both he and Council have refused to address those concerns; that Mr. Wilding presumably told the Chair, Cllr Jones, that he would be attending the Extraordinary meeting as a councillor and make it quorate; and that he would therefore be voting on a preferred bid for £50,000, recommended by his wife, from a procurement process which is I believe is unlawful.
If I had applied for co-option and there were doubts about the lawfulness of my co-option, I would do the decent thing and simply say I would wait for the next Council meeting and get it done properly.
I would be particularly careful if one of the councillors on the Council was my spouse.
In this situation, I certainly would not turn up to an Extraordinary Council meeting to make it quorate. Nor would I vote for a contract worth £50,000 which my spouse had recommended and where the lawfulness of the procurement was in doubt.
The circumstances of the co-option
1. The agenda for the meeting of HPC on 23 July came out on 17 July and it included an item which said
“5.1 Naphill & Walters Ash Ward Vacancy
Clerk to report. Councillors to consider an application and vote. – Appendix B”
2. The supporting papers for the meeting were sent out on 18 July, including Appendix B.
3. I read the papers over the weekend and sent an e-mail to the locum Clerk on 20 July, pointing out that the supporting papers contained no application from Mr. Wilding.
4. I received no response.
5. At the beginning of the meeting on 23 July, Cllr Yvonne Wilding declared an interest in the application as Mr. Wilding was her husband. The locum Clerk then said he had received an application from Cllr Yvonne Wilding for a dispensation which, if granted, meant she would be able to vote for the co-option of her husband. He said he was inclined to grant the dispensation.
6. The locum Clerk, who is the Proper Officer, then wrongly advised Council that it was for Council to decide whether to grant the dispensation; HPC’s Standing Orders say it is for the Proper Officer to make that decision. Council voted not to grant the dispensation.
5. When Council came to the item on the application, I pointed out that Council had not seen an application form from Mr. Wilding; this form requires candidates for co-option to confirm in writing that they meet the eligibility criteria and confirm that they are not disqualified. The form sets out the criteria and the disqualifications, and candidates are required to tick the boxes against these and sign the form. This form was required by HPC's procedures for co-option (at FILLING-VACANCIES.pdf (hughenden-pc.gov.uk). The procedures are based on legal requirements.
6. The locum Clerk said he did not know candidates had to complete a written form and, when I had raised the issue in my e-mail of 20 July, he could not find the form. Mr. Wilding confirmed he had not filled in such a form.
7. I asked the locum Clerk if the co-option would be lawful in the absence of written confirmation that Mr. Wilding met the eligibility criteria and in the absence of written confirmation that he was not disqualified. The locum Clerk said he had cleared the procedures with Bucks Council.
8. However, it transpired that Bucks Council had advised on the procedures leading up to co-option but not on the lawfulness of the co-option in the absence of written confirmation from Mr. Wilding that he met the eligibility criteria and that he was not disqualified.
7. The locum Clerk then advised Council that it would be lawful for him to read out the eligibility criteria from a list on his laptop and for Mr. Wilding to say orally whether he met the criteria or not, and for the locum Clerk to read out the disqualifications from his laptop and for Mr. Wilding to say orally whether he was disqualified or not.
8. The locum Clerk then proceeded to do this, in, I have to say, some confusion and while others were talking. I was unclear from which document the locum Clerk was reading from his laptop (he did not clarify this). Nor could I hear much of what he was saying and could not therefore check that he was reading out a correct and complete list of the eligibility criteria or of the relevant disqualifications, even if I had had a list with me (which I didn’t).
9. When Mr. Wilding responded to the locum Clerk, I could not understand what Mr. Wilding was responding to.
10. Council voted to co-opt Mr. Wilding. I asked for a recorded vote and voted against.
11. Mr. Wilding signed the declaration of acceptance of office and joined the meeting as a councillor.
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