WHITBY: The Silenced Majority

WHITBY: The Silenced Majority

• – an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, expanding upon an address given to the Finance, Policy & General Purposes Committee (FP&GP) of Whitby Town Council on Tuesday 10th December 2024 (full report on which will follow in a day or three, awaiting data).

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Readers may imagine that anyone who believes that literally every one of the circa 10,000 Electors of the Civic Parish of Whitby in North Yorkshire have had their VOICES SILENCED when it come to the matter of how the Local Council Tax (Precept) is administered must be some kind of rabid ‘Commie’ agitator.

To further suggest that the very force that has accomplished this silencing of VOICES is nothing other than Democracy itself seems counter-intuitive to the point of utter absurdity.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

This almost incredible negation of the Democratic Process (enshrined in the Local Government Act 1972, the Representation of the People Act 1983, et al) has been achieved in three simple steps – and nobody seems to have noticed.

Yet, supposedly, everyone has a right to raise his VOICE. This right is enshrined in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which guarantees:

NB: This right to give free vent to one’s VOICE is what is known as a “qualified right” – meaning that one may not breach (for example) the Defamation Act 2013; one may not defame by the spoken word (slander) or written word (libel); one may not threaten, intimidate or bully, etc, etc.

I have studied the machinations of Whitby Town Council for almost 16 years now. I have formed some opinions. Other opinions are available . . .

STEP ONE – Local Elections

Local elections normally take place in a four-year cycle – 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 – and so on. An exception arose due to Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) when the cycle was interrupted by the local elections held in May 2022 to accommodate the abolition of North Yorkshire County Council and its seven Borough and District Councils Councils, subsequently subsumed within the new Unitary Autority – North Yorkshire Council.

The Parish of Whitby is subdivided into seven Wards – Abbey (with 5 seats), Ruswarp (2), Stakesby (5), Town North (2), Town South (1), West Cliff (3) and White Leys (1) – a total of 19 available seats on Whitby Town Council (17 presently occupied).

At election time, only in those Wards for which at least one more Nomination is registered than the number of vacant seats available does an election, by ballot, at the Polling Station, actually take place. Otherwise, Nominated candidates are elected “unopposed” (i.e. without a single vote being cast). This saves the costs of holding the elections. It also means that those “elected unopposed” have no mandate from the Electorate – and, more often than not, no sense of direct accountability.

In May 2022, the Returning Officer announced that 15 (out of a full complement of 19) members had been elected “unopposed” to Whitby Town Council, 4 of whom subsequently resigned:

Only 1 Whitby Town Council seat (that of Councillor Peter BOLTON [Lab.]) has been filled at an election by ballot, at the Polling Station on 20th June 2024, where 252 votes were cast (by a rather sorry 10.48% of the Stakesby Ward electorate).

The remainder, barring 2 presently vacant seats (for which two admirable Applicants have recently been rejected), have been filled by Co-Option (in which sitting Councillors – not Electors – may admit to the Council Applicants of their own choosing).

More on those rejected Applications in due course; for the moment, suffice it to say that Councillor Elizabeth MULHERAN – herself a recent Co-Optee, mark you, and well-rehearsed by the ‘old guard’ – badgered to the two Applicants so fiercely as to provoke a series of intra-Councillor emails (which I hold), describing her conduct as “disgraceful” and “despicable”. The fear amongst the ‘old guard’ that someone with some sense may find their way onto the Council is palpable.

Be that as it may, STEP ONE ensures that, Whitby’s circa 10,000 Electors have been reduced, at a stroke, from circa 10,000 to circa 9,750.

STEP TWO – Public Participation

Here follows an extract from the Agenda Pack of the Finance, Policy & General Purposes Committee meeting (which finally took place on Tuesday 10th December 2024, for the principal purpose of approving the draft Budget (over half a million pounds) for the Council’s 2025/26 Financial Year, including a projected Precept rise of 31.6% – notwithstanding Councillor John NOCK’s asinine remark to the effect that the 31.6% rise reported on ‘social media’ was not true – though it appears on the botton line of the draft Budget!

Wakey, wakey, John! Rather like Facebook, the Council Chamber is a forum in which members may display their stupidity without fear of confronting it).

Between elections, members of the public (MoPs) may attend Council and Committee Meetings, in which the Agenda invariably grants an opportunity for up to a maximum of 5 MoPs to address the Councillors for a maximun of 3 minutes each – totalling 15 minutes.

Thus, the number of VOICES permitted to be raised on the crucial matter of how much Whitby’s householders MUST pay towards Whitby Town Council’s continued existent is reduced to 5 out of the original circa 10,000 – plus, in their turn, the attending Committee members. (The Chair, Councillor Linda WILD, apologised for her absence, as did the Town Mayor, Councillor DALRYMPLE, whose attendance would in any case have been ex officio – i.e without voting rights. Councillor Jonathan HARSTON also sent his apologies for absence, as did Councillor Rob BARNETT. Councillors Chris RIDDOLLS and Jacqui LAYMAN attended as Substitutes, thus avoiding the inquoracy that brought about the postponement of the meeting on its originally scheduled date of 3rd December 2024).

But take pause for a moment to consider that the Council’s two ‘leading members’ – the Chair/Mayor Councillor DALRYMPLE and the former Chair/Mayor Councillor WILD (Chair of the FP&FP) failed – not one, but twice – to attend the most important financial meeting of the Council year. Duty calls, eh? And neither of these leading lights authorised the attendance of the two Substitutes . . .

STEP THREE – The Council Structure

Within the meetings themselves, Councillors are also assured of an opportunity to raise their VOICES on behalf of those they represent – the Electors.

But only to a point.

That point arises when the Chair decides that the debate has arrived at its natural conclusion. It is then time to move to the Vote – the Resolution, the moment of decision-making.

At that point, the Councillors’ individual VOICES are subsumed into a SINGLE VOICE – the Resolution – VOICE OF THE COMMITTEE.

The Committee is an arm of local government – the Town Council – a body corporate – a so-called “creature of statue”. It is not a person.

The Committee is inanimate. It has no feelings or emotions. It is without human compassion. It has no conscience. It embodies no personal accountalility or blame. It is a legal instrument.

As the External Auditor has stated: “A Council is authorised to make decisions; be they good, bad or indifferent.”

Once the Resolution has been passed/carried (if the Councillors’ VOICES were equally divided, it is the duty of the Chair to exercise her second (or casting) vote to break the deadlock, though the normal protocol is that the casting vote should always be exercised in such a way as to preserve the status quo, rather than to introduce change for change’s sake). Then, the matter is written in stone, immune to human intervention.

The Resolution is thus a SINGLE VOICE, a corporate voice, devoid of accountability.

I settle upon this example because the Finance, Policy & General Purposes Committee is effectively the ‘engine room’ which informs Full Council on its most crucial financial decision (and there is none more crucial than the balancing of the Budget and, to taxpayers, the setting of the Precept – the Local Council Tax charge) for the year ahead.

A good Chair ensures an open debate (and I compliment Councillor Sandra TURNER on her chairing of the above-mentioned FP&GP meeting of 10th December 2024) with a light touch but a firm hand. Sandra allowed an open and wide-ranging discussion. The outcome was inconclusive. Two deeply disturbing issues remain opaque to members of the Committee and the public alike:

• the inexplicable hole in the Council’s Reserves (the ‘rainy day’ fund), amounting to perhaps 80-90% of the levels recommended under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (between 30-50% of the overall Budget);
• the equally inexplicable hole in the Council’s revenue from the DANFO-operated public conveniences, amounting to what has been conservatively estimated at around £50k.

All in all, anything up to a quarter of a million pounds lies beyond the scope of proper scrutiny.

SILENCED VOICES

Thus, after the three simple steps described above – which I took pains to set out clearly in my address to the those present at the FP&GP meeting (though, in the case of a couple of the Councillors, I may just as well have spoken in the dying language of Belarusian), Whitby’s circa 10,000 VOICES have been reduced to 1 SINGLE UNACCOUNTABLE VOICE.

Somewhere in the region of up to 40% of the overall Budget cannot be properly accounted for. The rest of us may think and say whatever we please – but to no avail. The deed is done and no single individual stands accountable. Only the anonymised VOICE of the Committee.

A wonderful thing, Democracy – but not, perhaps, in the way we have always been taught – and trustingly believed.

THE LAST TRUMP

My advice is that two diligent WTC Councillors – a Proposer and a Seconder – should raise a Motion as an Agenda Item, calling for the Council to commission a reputable firm of Forensic Accountants (see North Walsham Town Council, here) to examine every last detail of the Council’s financial record over (say) the past five years, AND DEMAND A RECORDED VOTE.

In this way, those Councillors who appear on the public record as having publicly opposed the Motion would thereby identify themselves as actively resisting exhaustive scrutiny. In law, this is known as “mens rea“ – indicative of a guilty mind.

They would thus risk falling foul of the legislation REQUIRING them to act WITHOUT NEGLIGENCE or BAD FAITH – the test under which PERSONAL LIABILITY arises (though it maybe that the Council has provided indemnity protecting individual members from action at law).

This Local Government Association Guidance (link) provides full details.

COMING SOON

Full Report on the FP&GP Budget Meeting (at which the Budget/Precept decision was deferred until Full Council in January 2025).