“Overwhelming majority” of councils want hybrid meeting powers, LGA survey finds, as wait for outcome of call for evidence continues

The overwhelming majority of councils (95%) surveyed by the Local Government Association (LGA) want the powers to be able to reintroduce virtual and hybrid technology for statutory council meetings.

The LGA claimed that the recruitment and retention of councillors, “particularly those balancing career or care commitments”, will be hampered if powers are not given to councils to be able to hold statutory meetings in a hybrid manner.

One in 10 councils surveyed had a councillor who had stepped down in their authority since May 2021 due to the requirement for them to attend council meetings in-person, the LGA said.

The findings from the survey, which was completed by around a third of local authorities in England, also found that:

• 84% of councils found their councillors with work commitments would benefit from hybrid meetings, whilst 64% of councils thought that their councillors with childcare commitments would also take advantage of the changes.
• Almost 9 in 10 councils surveyed said they had councillors who would make use of virtual attendance options to attend council meetings as a reasonable adjustment.
• No council surveyed wanted to hold fully virtual meetings but the vast majority wanted hybrid options for those councillors who needed it.

Councils are required to hold certain statutory meetings, such as for planning and full council, in person. However, during the pandemic, councils were temporarily allowed to hold these meetings virtually until May 2021.

The LGA warned that without these powers, “communities will needlessly lose good councillors” and prospective candidates would be put off from standing for election because in-person meetings were creating real barriers to a range of people engaging with local politics.

The Government launched its call for evidence in March 2021. The following month the Divisional Court ruled that meetings held by local authorities in England under the Local Government Act 1972 had to take place in person from 7 May 2021 when emergency regulations introduced in the early stages of the first lockdown expired.

However, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has yet to publish the results of the call for evidence and any next steps more than two years after it closed.

In January 2022 the Secretary of State for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, said he was “strongly in sympathy with the view that hybrid meetings should continue in order to ensure the maximum amount of efficiency”.

In March this year, DLUHC refused a freedom of information request from the Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO) and Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) in relation to its remote meetings ‘call for evidence’, on the grounds of the burden it would impose.

The groups had asked for all information received by the Government in relation to its call for evidence, including a “breakdown of the responses received, the number received and the content of the responses, together with any documentation the government holds in respect of the analysis of those responses”.

On the results of the LGA survey, Cllr Joe Harris, the Association's Vice-Chair, said: “Good decision-making needs people who reflect the range of experiences, background and insight that exist in their communities.

“However, councillors are restricted by law to attend council meetings in person, which can deter a range of people including full time professionals, parents of young children, carers, workers and disabled people from stepping forward to represent their communities."

He added: “The Government should provide councils, who know their communities best, with the flexibility they need to decide how to use hybrid technologies in their meetings.

“People’s expectations have changed due to improvements in virtual meeting technologies bought on by the pandemic. Many people now use hybrid meeting technologies every day in their work life and so there should be no reason why this cannot be used by councils across the country.

“This will help to drive up engagement in local democracy and ensure that we have a diverse range of councillors throughout our communities."

John Austin, chair of ADSO, and Helen McGrath, Head of Public Affairs at LLG, said: "The results of the LGA survey very much supports the ADSO and LLG campaign to allow councils to hold remote meetings if they wish. The evidence and the merits of our case are compelling.

"We therefore call on the Secretary of State to make the necessary legislative change and allow councils to operate in the modern world as the Government and Parliament both do successfully." 

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been approached for comment.