Letter: GBC Is Not Complying With the Law on Committee Seat Allocation

Published on: 12 Dec, 2018
Updated on: 12 Dec, 2018

From John Perkins

Guildford Borough Council does not, I believe, comply with the law in respect of the allocation of seats on committees.

The law sets out four mandatory principles:

not all seats are allocated to one political group
the majority of the seats must be allocated to the majority group
the total seats allocated to a group is proportional to its membership of the council
the seats on each committee allocated to a group are proportional to its membership of the council

The principles are in order of priority, so c is subject to a and b, and d is subject to a, b and c. In recognition of the fact that proportions tend to be fractions while seats and councillors tend to be whole numbers, the allocation need only be proportional ‘as far as is practicable’.

Calculation of the allocation must be done by the “Proper Officer”, in this case, the democratic services manager. Groups may express their preferences, but the council can only vote on any allocations made by the officer.

Anyone wondering what happened to the allocation on 4th December, which is in breach of principle d, need only refer back to that of 9th October when Cllr. Spooner stated “being brutally honest, clearly, this has been put forward by the Conservatives, after consultation with the group. We did go to Labour because with due respect there are three major parties nationally in relation to the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Labour and in fact, it’s no secret that this applies a Labour preference. I’m quite happy to state that.”

There are many other examples of the Conservative group appearing to claim ownership of the process in the July, October and December meetings.

Cllrs Furniss and Spooner often justify the allocations by referring to ‘parties’ (even national parties) whereas the law only recognises local groups on the council.

Responses to Letter: GBC Is Not Complying With the Law on Committee Seat Allocation

Valerie Thompson Reply

December 12, 2018 at 7:27 pm

When did GBC Conservative Councillors follow the letter of the law? Rarely, I think. The committee allocations should not be the arbitrary choice of the Executive but take careful notice of proportional representation.

I see that Matt Furniss is to take up a position on SCC. Will he then leave GBC? Many people would not be sad to see him go.
Perhaps when the local elections take place we can remove all those who have been so rude to Councillors in other groups and those who interrupt other people, taking up their allotted 3 minutes, and won’t let them make their point.