A councillor has called on the Government to investigate City of York Council’s decision to move a Full Council meeting online at the eleventh hour due to Covid infections in the ruling administration.

Cllr Michael Pavlovic told senior council officers they had been “held to ransom” by ruling Liberal Democrat / Green councillors who wanted the meeting held virtually.

Cllr Pavlovic is a Labour councillor but his comments were made in his position as chair of the audit and governance committee, which is tasked with scrutinising the governance of the council.

Government legislation does not allow for councils to hold decision-making meetings remotely, so tonight’s meeting will be ‘informal’, with the council’s chief operating officer, Ian Floyd, given the power to ratify those decisions.

In a letter, Cllr Pavolic wrote: “I cannot see, either in the current council constitution or in legislation, the authority you have applied to assume power when council would be quorate, even with the possible sickness absences.

“Invoking the emergency powers of the chief operating officer, when this is clearly not an emergency situation, is not in my opinion legally or constitutionally justifiable.”

He claimed that six members of the Liberal Democrat group were infected. Such a number would leave the ruling administration vulnerable to losing votes.

The council’s director of governance and monitoring officer, Janie Berry, told councillors in an email that there was “a risk that some of these could be in attendance” at Full Council.

Cllr Pavlovic wrote that this showed officers were concerned infected councillors would turn up, disregarding public health advice.

“If members were infected, they should not attend the meeting, anything else would be grossly irresponsible,” he wrote

“Your decision to seemingly allow yourselves to be held to ransom by an explicit or implicit threat to attend the meeting whilst infected and contagious should not have been made, or if made, resisted.”

He added: “If councillors are so concerned about potentially not losing votes that they would risk causing harm to the public, members and officers, this should have been called out publicly as part of your duty to protect the citizens of York. Instead you allowed yourselves to be coerced into invoking emergency powers.” 

The Liberal Democrats have insisted the move is about protecting public health and ensuring all councillors are involved in decision making.

Speaking today (Thursday), Cllr Pavolic said: “I feel that the actions of the past 24 hours bring disrepute to the city of York.

“I have never seen anything in my time as a councillor that is comparable and such are my concerns about the conduct of those involved in this decision that I am compelled to write to the Secretary of State [for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove] to ask for an urgent investigation into the governance of the City of York” 

A council spokesman said the authority had nothing further to add to what it had said on a notice on the Full Council agenda.

Read it here