Reform UK says Cornwall Council has no democracy
Councillors have said that “democracy is not in place”
A war of words has broken out at Lys Kernow / County Hall in Truro with Reform UK’s group leader saying “democracy is not in place” at Cornwall Council. Cllr Rob Parsonage argues that his Reform councillors should hold more senior committee roles as the largest opposition party in order to scrutinise the council’s ruling Liberal Democrat / Independent administration.
However, the council’s Lib Dem leader Cllr Leigh Frost believes that Reform’s 28 councillors – 26 of whom were newly elected on May 1 – don’t have enough experience to chair the committees they want to head up. He said: “We’ve tried to work with all the groups to make sure the people with all the right skills, experience and talent get the right roles, not like before when all the administration members got all the seats as that’s just ridiculous.”
The Bodmin councillor added: “Reform talked a lot about the financial situation at Cornwall Council, that’s one of the main things they campaigned on, so my group supported them if they put up a chair and vice-chair for those committees. They would then have someone in a position of power to look at the finances of the council.
“Rob Parsonage said he would think about it and he’s not talked about it with me ever since. It may be a misunderstanding, but I thought they were going to come back to me and decide whether they were happy with that.” Cllr Parsonage says his understanding was that Cllr Frost would come back to him after talking it through with his deputy, Cllr Adam Paynter.
The administration has offered Reform the chair of the budget development overview and scrutiny committee and vice-chair positions on the audit and corporate finance overview and scrutiny committees. Reform – who were voted on to Cornwall Council with the most councillors of any political group, but not enough for a majority to lead – feel they should have more senior roles, particularly on scrutiny committees.
Several attempts by Reform councillors to stand for chair or vice-chair roles have been outvoted in favour of members of other political groups.
Reform put forward Cllr Kevin Towill as the chair of the constitution and governance committee on Tuesday, June 10. The Newquay councillor, who defected from the Tories to Reform, didn’t get the role as Mebyon Kernow’s Dick Cole received more votes. Conservative member Jordan Rowse was elected as vice-chair. Cllr Frost says Cole and Rowse were voted in as the most experienced councillors for the roles.
Of the committees that have sat so far, none have had a Reform councillor elected to the chair or vice-chair roles. Despite two Reform councillors – Roger Tarrant and Peter Channon – being proposed for the chair and vice-chair roles on the council’s strategic planning committee last week, Liberal Democrat Chris Batters was voted in as chair with Independent councillor James Ball elected vice-chair.
Cllr Robin Moorcroft (Independent) was elected as chair of the licensing committee, with Cllr Damon Dennis (Lib Dem) as vice-chair, while Cllr Luke Rogers (Lib Dem) became chair of the Harbours Board and Martyn Alvey (Cons) elected as its vice-chair. The east sub-area planning committee voted Cllr Adrian Parsons (Lib Dem) as its chair with Cllr Mark Gibbons (Independent) as his deputy.
Cllr Frost argued that many of the Reform councillors proposed for senior committee roles don’t have the experience to warrant the positions. “Chairing a meeting isn’t just chairing a meeting, there’s a lot of background stuff and you need some serious experience for that. We’ve said we’ll support them for vice-chairs on the committees they want, audit and corporate finance overview and scrutiny, and then once they’ve got a few years under their belt as the vice-chair, we’ll support them for the chair.
“Nothing’s guaranteed because committees vote for their own chairs and vice-chairs. Unlike the previous administration, no group has a majority on committees anymore, so it really does mean we all have to work together. We’ve ensured that Reform have got the support in the areas where they want support.
“We’ve supported their candidates, but they’ve said ‘I want this’. The thing is when you’re trying to negotiate between seven groups, ‘I want’ is very difficult. We’re supporting Labour’s Laurie Magowan as chair of audit, as he was the vice-chair in the last administration and he’s really good when it comes to finance. It’s not a party political thing at all, it’s about making sure the right people are in the right roles.”
The leader added: “I’ve seen one of Reform’s opinion pieces saying they’ve got no representation because we’re keeping them out of scrutiny. They’ve got four places on every scrutiny committee! We’ve really tried to help them. They need to decide whether they want to be part of Cornwall Council or just on the outside throwing stones. If they want to get stuff done, they need to be part of it.”
Responding to Cllr Frost’s comments about a lack of experience, the Reform group leader said of his Cornwall Council colleagues: “Reform UK has somebody who was chief executive officer of a hospital, two people who have run very successful businesses including care homes and IT, another person who has been on the executive of a number of nuclear sites and organisational restructuring focused on safe delivery. These CVs, I would suggest, probably eclipse a number of CVs of people in County Hall today.”
Cllr Parsonage added: “They originally offered us the two vice-chair roles for the audit and corporate finance committees. We didn’t ask for them. We were focusing on audit and scrutiny committees because they’re the ones which, as opposition, we should be sitting on as the chair and setting the agenda, etc. If we were running the council, we would not be putting forward people to be chairs of any of the scrutiny committees or the audit committee because that is the job of the opposition.
“Leigh Frost later said Reform could have chair of the budget overview and scrutiny committee as well as those two vice-chairs. I said we were actually looking at the scrutiny committees. He said he needed to go back to his deputy, Adam Paynter, to discuss it further and I haven’t heard anything else from him specifically about what’s going on and I’m not going chasing.
“We are the opposition, we have 28 seats and we will act as the opposition and hold them to account. Where they are doing something good we will help them to accelerate whatever it is.”
He added that talks behind the scenes to choose prospective chairs and vice-chairs before the actual committee’s vote on who should get the senior roles shows a lack of democracy at the heart of the council.
“You now have the administration – the Liberal Democrats and the alternative Liberal Democrats, the Independents – basically you’ve got a group of 42 Liberal Democrats agreeing people who are chairs and vice-chairs prior to having a meeting that purports to show democracy at work by people voting in the chair and vice-chair, when it has already been pre-arranged.
“So to the general public, they’re seeing democracy at work. However, in the background these people have been put into these positions because they are then tied to the administration very firmly. By definition of Cllr Frost telling you that he has offered us three positions, he has demonstrated that democracy is not in place.”
Cllr Parsonage said: “It is only by being open and transparent about what is going on in Cornwall Council that we will implement change. I have requested CVs of members of the miscellaneous licensing committee to allow Reform UK to vote for the best person to be the chair and vice-chair of that committee. To date, we have not received a response from any of the committee other than Cllr Dulcie Tudor.”