Legal opinion cost Torbay £4,000

Mix-up led to officers unable to make decisions

Picking a top barrister’s brains to solve a Torbay Council mix-up cost council taxpayers more than £4,000.

The council called on a King’s Counsel (KC) last month after a chaotic meeting left council officers unable to do their jobs properly.

Members of the Conservative administration and Liberal Democrat/Independent opposition voted along strict party lines during a meeting at which several key decisions were taken.

One of them should have been to rubber-stamp a council formality which comes up every year – authorising officers to make day-to-day decisions in their departments.

They are given what are called delegated powers to make non-critical decisions without having to refer everything to councillors for official permission. 

No party currently has overall control of the council, which is divided between 18 Tories and 18 opponents. By the time the matter came up on the agenda, one Conservative councillor had been given permission by the group leader to leave early. Consequently, the administration’s motion was lost by 18 votes to 17, and the council officers were temporarily stripped of their powers.

With the council’s day-to-day work effectively paralysed as a result of the vote, the KC was called to offer advice.

The barrister said decisions could continue to be made at the discretion of the council’s chief executive, and certain key meetings should go ahead as scheduled, including those of the planning committee.

But the KC also advised the council to meet as soon as possible to put things right. Members took just six minutes to do so at a one-issue meeting at the beginning of July.

A KC is as a barrister or solicitor advocate who has been recognised for excellence. They are often leaders in their area of law and generally take on more complex cases that require a high level of legal expertise.

To be awarded King’s Counsel status is one of the highest honours a lawyer can attain.

It cost the council a total of £4,140 for the KC’s opinion, according to a Torbay Council response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.