Did your councillor vote in favour of asking to postpone May’s elections?

Devon’s county councillors voted in favour of asking the government to allow it to postpone May’s local elections for a year whilst the future structure of councils becomes clearer.

Jim McMahon, the minster for local government and devolution, told councils  last month that any request to delay polling “must set out how postponing the election would enable the council to make progress with reorganisation and devolution”.

The government has set out plans to abolishing the existing structure of county and district councils, replacing them with larger ‘unitary-style’ councils and overarching ‘strategic’ areas run by elected mayors.

Some people who want to delays May’s election suggest organising a ballot at the same time as re-engineering how local government is organised would put staff under too much pressure, and mean the first job of new councillors would be to work out how to abolish the institution they have just been elected to.

At an estimated £1.5 million for Devon, it is also costly.

But opponents claim Devon County Council’s move is a sign of its Conservative administration trying to hold on to power for longer, in spite of the council facing issues such as an inadequate Ofsted rating for its children’s services department and a large financial deficit in its special education needs and disabilities (Send) provision.

A request for a recorded vote was made at Devon’s full council meeting last week, meaning every councillor who attended had the way in which they voted written down for the record. Votes are most often carried out with just a show of hands.

The vote was 37 for and 12 against. Ten councillors were not present at the meeting and the chairman – presently Councillor John Hart (Conservative, Bickleigh & Wembury) does not vote in such situations unless a deciding vote is required.

Devon County Council consists of 38 Conservative councillors, nine Liberal Democrats, four independents. six Labour, two Green Party and one non-aligned member.

So, how did your county councillor vote?