Audit That Another Day...

On 24th May, the Opposition members of the Audit and Governance Committee on Folkestone and Hythe District Council (Lib Dem Tim Prater, Green Lesley Whybrow and Labour's Ray Field) put down a motion to remove the Chair and Vice-Chair of the committee and to hold a meeting to elect their successors.

As signatories, we had an update from the Council agreeing that we could indeed remove the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee, and call a meeting for that purpose. However, their ruling on the constitution was that under those circumstances, the decision on who would be the Chair and Vice-Chair of that Committee would then revert back to Full Council, rather than be decided by the Committee.

After consideration, there seemed little point at this stage in a tug of war that lead to the Chair and Vice-Chair being removed by Committee, and then reinstated each time by a 16-14 vote at thje next Full Council meeting. We'd prefer to spend our time on arguing for bigger changes.

It remains our view that Committees should pick their own Chair and Vice-Chair from amongst their own number, and we'll push for Constitutional amendments to that effect this year to make that happen. We want to give control back from the Executive and Leader to the Council and Councillors. In the meantime, however, we have withdrawn our removal motion.