CORNWALL Council’s head solicitor has admitted a “weakness” over the way the local authority has approached a controversial bid to oust its Conservative leader Linda Taylor.

Opposition councillors John Conway and Julian German tabled a motion on Monday, September 30 for a vote of no confidence in Cllr Taylor, which needed to be signed by a third of Cornwall Council’s councillors in order to go to the vote. A lack of communication about the stalled Pydar development in Truro and a deal to find a financial partner to run Newquay airport are among the reasons cited for the move.

Cllr Conway says he received an email from a senior officer explaining that there would have to be a deadline for signatures four days later on Thursday, October 3. It said: “As you will appreciate, with ordinary motions there is a deadline for receipt, although no such guillotine exists for the motion you have submitted. We cannot have the matter running on indefinitely, therefore the monitoring officer has asked me to confirm with you that the deadline in terms of the motion is 5pm on Thursday.”

By that time limit 27 signatures had been received – 29 were required for it to go to a vote of no confidence at an extraordinary meeting. Opposition councillors say the necessary remaining two signatures came in just after the deadline.

A number of councillors have voiced their anger that there is nothing in the council’s constitution stating there should be a time limit for such motions. Cllr Tim Dwelly said: “There are 29 signatures only four days after the motion process started. No one knew any deadline applied on Monday. In fact we knew it didn’t because we can read the constitution.

“It’s nothing to do with wet signatures. It’s about an arbitrary imposition of a short deadline that isn’t even hinted at in the constitution. Making rules up on the hoof. How on earth does Cornwall Council think this will be perceived?”

Now the council’s monitoring officer has responded to the criticism, explaining the council’s procedure but admitting there is a “weakness” in its approach. Henry Gordon-Lennox has written to councillors and officials saying a “more flexible approach” was adopted concerning motions during the Covid pandemic.

He said: “For agenda management purposes it is necessary for there to be a ‘guillotine’ on submission of motions for programmed meetings, which is noon nine days before the meeting.”

Mr Gordon-Lennox added there was no such ‘guillotine’ for the motion calling for the vote of no confidence because the requisite number of supporters should be confirmed at the point of submission which then triggers the calling of an extraordinary meeting. The 29 required “wet signatures” were not confirmed at the “point of submission” last week, but the motion was allowed to continue.

“The recent motion to remove the leader has identified a weakness in the flexible approach we have been operating as against the strict requirements of the constitution. You will appreciate that obtaining the support for motions can happen quickly, it might take one month but also it might never happen.

“It is wholly unacceptable from a governance perspective that someone can seek to progress [the motion] and essentially have it ‘pending’ for a lengthy period of time until the requisite support is obtained. In using the flexible approach it is absolutely right that there needs to be a ‘guillotine’ to their operation for a number of sound reasons, not least certainty for the council and the public.”

He said a motion to remove previous Cornwall Council leader Julian German received the necessary support within two days. Last week’s move to oust Cllr Taylor had only received 16 signatures by Wednesday morning. Mr Gordon-Lennox then took the decision to give a deadline of 5pm on Thursday for the requisite amount of support to be obtained, “which is an entirely reasonable decision to take and period to give. The proposer and seconder were informed of this on Wednesday morning. The requisite support was not obtained by 5pm on Thursday”.

The monitoring officer added: “While I support the flexible approach, this cannot be at the expense of appropriate governance in relation to it. One cannot have the freedom of the flexible approach without controls on its operation. Members either need to accept that what has happened here is a reasonable approach or the council will have to revert to the hard copy / wet signature approach required by the constitution.”

He said the “weakness” will be brought to the council’s constitution and governance committee in January for consideration, which could lead to a change in the way such decisions are made.

Those who started the machinations to have Cllr Taylor removed from her post say they won’t take no for an answer and will now table the motion again with the 29 signatures attached.