North Yorkshire Council: Authority supports plan for remote meetings

Currently, councilors must attend meetings in person to be able to vote and contribute to a quorum.

However, ministers are seeking to relax the rules to allow remote and hybrid meetings, with members having full voting rights even when not physically present in the room.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, North Yorkshire Council suggested that up to half of its members could choose to attend council meetings remotely for a year, but it acknowledged it was important to hold some in-person meetings.

He said: “This council values ​​physical presence for the majority of meetings but does not consider that central government should dictate how physical and remote meetings should be managed.

“It was noted during the lockdown that informal remote meetings were extremely useful and that in the future it would be beneficial if these remote meetings could make binding decisions.”

He added: “Having the ability for members to attend remotely would be a very welcome option for this Council which is geographically the largest in the country.

“Allowing remote meetings in appropriate circumstances can reduce mileage, travel time, costs and reduce carbon emissions.”

However, on the issue of proxy voting, when an advisor asked a colleague to vote on his behalf, the authority said it was against it.

“This board does not support proxy voting because decision-makers would need to physically or remotely attend the meeting and hear the arguments made before a decision is made,” a spokesperson said.

“Allowing proxy voting in these circumstances would show a member to be closed-minded in that they would have already determined how they were going to vote without hearing the arguments presented that day.”

By 2023, a Local Government Association survey of around a third of English councils found nine in ten had councilors who would use virtual meetings if allowed.

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