Proxy Voting for Councillors
North Ayrshire Council · 3 December 2024
Back to Cabinet — 3 December 2024 and its agenda
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_____________________________________________________ NORTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL 3rd December 2024 Cabinet Title: Proxy Voting for Councillors ___________________________________________________________________ Purpose: To advise Cabinet of a consultation on a proposal to allow proxy voting for councillors and seek views and agreement on a proposed response. Recommendation: That Cabinet (i) notes the consultation on proxy voting for Councillors; (ii) agrees to submission of the consultation response attached at Appendix 1 and (iii) agrees to receive further updates as the consultation process progresses. ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Executive Summary The Scottish Government has opened a consultation on a proposal to allow proxy voting by councillors. It is considered that proxy voting in the Council is not required due to the limited circumstances when it could be used. It would not be suitable for decisions in quasi-judicial and regulatory committees and for many decisions of full Council where full impacts and implications require to be taken into account by the members participating as part of the decision-making process. A draft response to the consultation providing qualified agreement to the proposal is attached at Appendix 1. Background 1.1 The Local Government Scotland Act 2003 permits local authority meetings to be conducted on a hybrid basis. The members present either in person or online cast their vote on an individual basis. There is no legislative provision to enable voting by proxy in the event of the absence of a Councillor through illness or parental leave. 1.2 The Scottish Government is consulting on a proposal to amend the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to enable a Councillor to have their vote cast by proxy and which will further require the Council to publish a scheme setting out how proxy voting would work where Council decides to introduce it. The consultation can be viewed here: consultation on a proposal to allow proxy voting by councillors.
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1.3 The consultation recognises that there may be other ways, short of proxy voting which would aid decision making including the appointment of named substitutes or informal pairing agreements whereby two individuals from opposing parties both agree not to vote to enable a councillor to be absent without affecting the balance of the vote. 1.4 There is provision within the Council’s Standing Orders which provides for a substitute Member to attend certain committees of council in the event of the non-availability of the principal Member. These include the Appeals Committee, the Staffing and Recruitment Committee and the Ayrshire Economic Joint Committee. These provisions could be further extended but would not apply to full Council. Were named substitutes to be included for regulatory committees, those named substitutes would also require to undertake the necessary training to be able to participate in the decision-making process. For the Licensing Board, this would come at additional cost due to the external test which Councillors require to take. Named substitutes on quasi-judicial and regulatory committees would not be able to vote based on a direction from the principal appointee as the decision cannot be pre-determined. Attendance at regulatory committees requires consideration of the circumstances set out in the report and the decision is taken in accordance with any statutory provisions, policy and representations to ensure that a fair, transparent and sound decision is taken. It is not anticipated that proxy voting would be widely applicable to the governance of the Council. 1.5 The consultation document relates to a framework proposal at this stage and advises that even if the consultation supports the introduction of proxy voting, there is no legislative time available to introduce the necessary amendment to parliament. Any legislative amendment introduced would not be prescriptive and the operational details and criteria for any proxy voting scheme would not be set out in the legislation. It would be for local authorities to determine how any scheme would operate in practice. The Scottish Government does propose that the following criteria would be included in the operational agreement on proxy voting: • maternity leave, paternity leave, parental leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave; • complications arising from pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage or baby loss; • serious long-term illness or injury; • bereavement; • attending to a person who is near the end of their life; • any other reason subject to agreement of the full Council. 1.6 A proposed consultation response is attached at Appendix 1. The response includes the following points:
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• Proxy voting in the Council is not required due to the limited circumstances when it could be used. It would not be suitable for decisions in quasi-judicial and regulatory committees where decisions cannot be pre-determined and for many decisions of full Council where full impacts and implications e.g. in relation to the Fairer Scotland Duty, Public Sector Equality Duty, ECHR, UNCRC and Islands Duty require to be taken into account by the members participating as part of the decision-making process. To do otherwise could result in any decision being open to legal challenge. • If Parliament decides that proxy voting is introduced: o Individual Councils should determine its applicability to their own circumstances. o It would not be appropriate for all committees and decisions. o It should not be used to circumvent the provisions of Section 35 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 in relation to Councillor attendance. o A Member who has been suspended by the Standards Commission should not be allowed to exercise a proxy vote. o A Member who has an interest to declare may not arrange for another Member to exercise a proxy vote. o The limited nature of it suitable application should be noted and individual local authorities should have complete autonomy as to its introduction and application. 2. Proposals 2.1 That Cabinet i) notes the consultation on proxy voting for Councillors; (ii) agrees to submission of the consultation response attached at Appendix 1 and (iii) agrees to receive further updates as the consultation process progresses. 3. Implications / Socio-economic Duty Financial 3.1 None in relation to the consultation. Human Resources 3.2 None arising from this report. Legal 3.3 None arising from this report. Equality / Socio-economic 3.4 None arising from this report. Environmental and Sustainability
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3.5 None arising from this report. Key Priorities 3.6 The proposals outlined in this report will be of relevance to the Council’s priority of communities, local democracy and a sustainable council. Community Wealth Building 3.7 None. 4. Consultation With Monitoring Officers of other local authorities. Aileen Craig Head of Service, Democratic Services For further information please contact Aileen Craig, Head of Democratic Services by email to acraig@north–ayrshire.gov.uk
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APPENDIX 1 Consultation on proposal to Allow Proxy Voting by Councillors Consultation Questions Question 1 Do you agree that an explicit provision should be introduced to allow a councillor to arrange for their vote to be cast by proxy (YES/NO) Proposed Response: No Question 2 Do you agree with the optional criteria set out at paragraph 12 which could be applied by a local authority to allow for proxy voting? (YES/NO) Proposed Response: N/A Question 3 Are there any further comments that you wish to make on the proposal to allow for proxy voting (free text, 300 word maximum)? North Ayrshire Councils considers that this proposal would have limited applicability and for its purposes is not required. The Council already has provision for substitutes on committees which could be extended as necessary and for many decisions, proxy voting would not be permissible. If legislative provision is brought forward, it would be important that any legislative amendments would permit rather than mandate a Council to introduce proxy voting with individual arrangements being a matter for each Council to determine in accordance with its own political and demographic circumstances and governance structures. The Council would wish the following points to be taken into account if proxy voting is to be advanced:- • Proxy voting should not apply to quasi-judicial and regulatory committees where decisions cannot be predetermined. • Proxy voting would not be appropriate in circumstances where a decision requires to be taken and in respect of which various statutory duties apply e.g. the Fairer Scotland Duty, Islands Duty, Public Sector Equality Duty, ECHR, UNCRC. In those circumstances Members voting would require to participate in the meeting and take into account the full report and any debate prior to a decision being taken. To act otherwise, may result in a legal challenge to the Council’s decision-making process. • Proxy voting should not be used to circumvent the provisions of Section 35 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 in relation to Councillor attendance.
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• A Member who has been suspended by the Standards Commission should not be allowed to exercise a proxy vote. • A Member who has an interest to declare may not arrange for another Member to exercise a proxy vote. • A member who has arranged for a proxy to vote on their behalf should not count towards a quorum at the meeting;