Category:The Second Case of an Absent Councillor

There is a law, which we will call the Six-month Rule, which states that if a councillor doesn't attend any meeting over a six-month period, they are automatically ejected from office.

Before 2023, it is believed that not a single member of Claygate Parish Council had fallen foul of this rule. But of the 2023 intake, one councillor—Cllr Twells—had already been obliged to relinquish his seat for this reason in January 2024. Cllr Twells had stood as a member of the Connecting Claygate faction which overtook the Parish Council in May 2023.

In 2025, a second councillor, Cllr Moon, also a member of the Connecting Claygate faction, looked set to fail to attend any council meetings over a six-month period. But then on 17th July, just before the clock was due to call it a day for him, he suddenly turned up at a Planning committee meeting. This was not a committee he was a member of; nor had he been designated as a substitute replacement for an absent councillor. So he wasn't entitled to vote at the meeting. Effectively he attended as a member of the public.

The technical question is whether attending that meeting as a member of the public resets the six-month clock back to zero. The moral question is how long he should let the Parish Council continue at 90% capacity—there are ten councillors on the Parish Council—when there are clearly several residents keen to become a councillor.

This page has been set up to provide the evidence and argument to answer the technical question:

First phase—Establishing Cllr Moon's status at the 17th July meeting:

1. It is at the Annual Meeting that the Parish Council appoints councillors to the various committees for the next 12 months. It can be seen in item 14a that Cllr Moon was not assigned to the Planning committee.
2. The minutes of the 17th July meeting of the Planning committee show the name of Cllr Moon alongside the proper members of the committee. Another non-member of the committee, Cllr French, is listed alongside the members of the public who attended. Cllr French sat with the members of the public; Cllr Moon sat with the proper committee members. It was not explained to the public who attended that Cllr Moon was not a member of the committee and that he would not be entitled to vote on any matter.
3. The Clerk stated by email on 18th March that Cllr Moon had not been entitled to vote at the 17th July meeting.
4. The Clerk was notified by email of a question for the chair of the Planning Committee to state at its next meeting what Cllr Moon's status had been at the 17th July meeting.
   Second phase— Establishing that attendance at a meeting of a committee one is not a member of does not reset the six-month clock:
5. Another council has already determined that, for the six-month clock to be reset, a councillor must be a member of the committee whose meeting he is attending.
   Third phase— The Chair of the Parish Council tries to prevent this anomaly being investigated further:
6. On 5th September, the Chair of the Parish Council stated that Cllr Moon had attended the 17th July meeting as a councillor because the minutes said so and had now been agreed and signed.
7. On 8th September, the Chair of the Parish Council was asked, among several emailed questions, why she had asked the chair of the Planning Committee to pass off Cllr Moon at the 17th July Planning committee meeting as if he were a valid member of that committee.