Malvern Hills District Council NEWS UPDATE


AUTUMN 2012


Localism in the Malvern Hills district


At a meeting of its Executive Committee on 30 October, Malvern Hills District Council unveiled its policy in relation to the new Localism Act. The report is available online in the minutes and agenda section of the council’s website. CALC has agreed with the council that its policy will be discussed in detail with representatives from all town and parish councils in the district at a conference to be arranged to take place in the New Year. It is hoped that this can become an annual conference.


In advance of that conference Peter Tebbitt (pictured below) and Richard Levett were invited to meet with the Leader and Deputy Leader of MHDC to discuss how CALC could forge closer working relationships with the district council.


MalvernHills DistrictCouncil www.malvernhills.gov.uk


size of parish and town councils in the district (the smallest has 129 electors!) we want to explore whether there is an opportunity for parish councils to cluster together to work on planning issues with one of the parish councils in the cluster becoming the lead parish. This would build capacity and resilience and give parishes greater scope to decide whether to pursue either a neighbourhood plan or a community led plan.


There has been considerable debate about predetermination recently and we thought it might be useful to reproduce in this newsletter an extract from a letter sent to all district councillors recently;


“Members should already be aware from the induction process of the rules around predetermination and bias, but it may be helpful to set these out again. Please note that these are two related but distinct concepts.


The rule on predetermination is that a member must not have, or appear to have, a closed mind in approaching a decision. The converse of this is that it is possible to express a legitimate predisposition to a decision, so long as the member is clear that their mind is not made up.


The discussions covered most of the major provisions in the Act and there were some extremely positive outcomes to the meeting. Because town and parish councils can only use the new general power of competence where they employ a qualified clerk, MHDC and CALC have agreed to work together on a scheme to encourage a number of existing clerks to become qualified and, if appropriate, to carry out a “buddying” or mentoring role with unqualified colleagues.


Similarly given the significant variations in the


The rule on bias is that a decision will be held to be biased if a fair minded and informed observer could conclude that there was a real possibility of bias. That is, a complainant does not have to show that there has been actual bias.


If actual or apparent bias or predetermination can be shown on the part of a single member of a committee or council meeting, then the courts have held that the decision as a whole can be held to be void.


The Localism Act sought to clarify the distinction between predetermination and members having a legitimate predisposition. However, the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors, the professional organisation for monitoring and


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