Council chiefs in North Yorkshire have backed plans to allow councillors to take-part and vote in key meetings from home.
North Yorkshire Council has backed a government proposal to enable remote attendance at local authority meetings.
Council bosses have however stopped short of giving their support to proxy voting, which is also being proposed in the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government consultation.
Currently, councillors must attend meetings in person to be able to vote and contribute to a quorum.
However, ministers are looking to ease the rules to allow remote and hybrid meetings, with members having full voting rights even when they are not physically present in the room.
In its response, North Yorkshire Council said local authorities should be allowed to decide their own arrangements for remote meeting attendance, including the possibility of full remote attendance.
The council said:
“It should be a matter for each local authority to determine the parameters of if and when remote meetings should take-place and how they should be run.
“Whilst there are arguments for and against remote/hybrid meetings, this council believes that it should be a matter of local choice to reflect the views of the locally democratically elected members to serve their locality.”
The council suggested up to half of its members could choose to attend council meetings remotely over a year.
The authority said it recognised that it was important to hold some meetings in person to ensure democracy was being seen to be implemented locally.
However, it added:
“This council believes it should be a matter for each local authority to determine which meetings and the frequency of those meetings to be held fully remotely.
“This council values physical presence for the majority of meetings but does not consider central government should mandate how physical and remote meetings should be handled.
“It was noted during lockdown that having informal remote meetings was extremely helpful and in the future, it would be beneficial if those remote meetings could make binding decisions.”
It added:
“Having the flexibility for members to attend remotely would be a very welcome option for this Council which is the geographically 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 a councillor would ask a colleague to vote on their behalf, the authority said it was not in favour.
It said in its response:
“This council is not in favour of proxy voting as decision-makers should be physically or remotely in attendance at the meeting and hear the arguments made before a decision is taken.
“Allowing proxy voting in these circumstances would show a member to have a closed mind in that they would already have determined the way they are going to vote without hearing the arguments being presented on the day.”
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