North Yorkshire to Continue with Virtual Council Meetings

The law that allows Councils to hold meetings remotely expires today but North Yorkshire County Council has found a way to continue with virtual meetings.

Emergency legislation was put in place last year to enable local authorities to hold council meetings online. Those laws expire today leaving councils in a position of potentially having to return to face to face meetings before the vaccination programme is complete, which some councillors fear is putting themselves and council staff at risk.

The government says it has been unable to find parliamentary time to extend the emergency provision.

The 1972 local government act, written before the internet age, doesn't explicitly prohibit remote meetings, but doesn't specifically allow them either.

A high court action to try and clarify the situation hasn't helped and so this week North Yorkshire County Council passed a motion that will allow it to continue with 'non-decision making' remote meetings for the time being, with the actual power to make decisions being delegated to the councils unelected Chief Exec.

Council Leader Carl Les says the law needs changing.

Carl Les says the fix approved by councillors this week isn't a permanent solution and that the council does need to get back to business as usual as soon as possible, but that business as usual would ideally include some new methods of working which would require changes to the Local Government act.

Councillor John McCartney says the remote meetings have bought with them a number of benefits and that they should continue to be part of all councils operating procedures.

But not everyone agrees that the virtual meeting format is required. The County Council's youngest councillor Keane Duncan backed the temporary fix but feels the council should just get back to face to face meetings.

The plan approved by North Yorkshire County Council this week states that that from 7th May 2021:

• a) the Council continues to hold remote live-broadcast committee meetings, with any formal decisions required being taken by the Chief Executive Officer under his emergency delegated powers;
• b) that power be delegated to the Chief Executive Officer to:
  • (i)make any decisions necessary to enable virtual meetings for members to continue (including considering the implications of the existing legal challenge once the judgement has been made),
  • (ii)determine which committee meetings should be held virtually and which should be held physically

The Government has issued guidance for the safe use of council buildings which actively encouraged councils to move their annual council meeting to before 7 May 2021 (before the expiry of the Emergency Regulations) and to use powers to delegate decision-making to key individuals such as the Head of Paid Service and/or single Member decision-making.

However the guidance goes on to state that where meetings take place in person the following steps should be followed:

• 1.Only those participants absolutely necessary should physically attend meetings and should maintain social distancing (2 metres apart or1 metre with risk mitigation where 2 metres is not viable).
• 2.Avoid transmission during meetings for example by not sharing pens, documents and other objects.
• 3.Provide hand sanitisers in the rooms.
• 4.Holding meetings in well ventilated rooms whenever possible.
• 5.Use floor signage to help people maintain social distancing.
• 6.Not allow the public to attend and instead broadcast the meetings online (the guidance states that the public should not be attending council meetings until after 21 June 2021).

In the report presented to councillors this week Councillor Les concluded that the guidance for face to face meetings would be impossible to follow saying :

"In reality this would make it extremely hard,if not impossible,to have a full Council meeting of all councillors in one venue staying 2 metres apart.It would not currently be possible to hold a full Council meeting in any properties owned by the Council. In addition, appropriate risk assessments would need to be carried out in ensuring staff have the appropriate safeguards"

All of the Council’s formal, public committee meetings are currently live-broadcast, being live-streamed via the Council’s YouTube page. The first remote meeting was held on 19 May 2020 and since then a total of 104 (as at 22April 2021) formal committee meetings have been held remotely and live broadcast. Following this weeks vote by councillors it is expected that this arrangement will continue until at least the end of July.