Congleton: Cheshire East Councillor suggests job vacancies could explain number of cancelled meetings
Numerous Cheshire East members have recently expressed concern about the number of council meetings being cancelled and asked whether this is because of staff vacancies.
More than 20 committee meetings have been cancelled since January 2022, according to the council's own online calendar.
As reported previously by the Local Democracy Reporting Service and Nub News, at the end of August the council had 220 job vacancies.
That's nearly 7.5 per cent of its posts unfilled - including many vacancies in Congleton.
Poynton and Pott Shrigley councillor Jos Saunders (Con) brought the matter up at Thursday afternoon's meeting of the audit and governance committee.
"How many [meetings] were cancelled and were they in one particular area and, again, was it because of lack of staff resourcing?" she asked.
"I did note that we're carrying I think it's 220/230 staffing vacancies, and I would just like to dig down as to if one of the causes for these cancelled meetings, which do seem to occur on a weekly basis, is because of a lack of resources."
Of the meetings cancelled this year, the LDRS can report that six have been planning committee meetings.
As previously reported, the council's planning department has been under huge pressure because of staff vacancies combined with a large backlog of applications.
Cheshire East is currently conducting a 'deep dive' into the planning process.
That particular matter had been touched on at an earlier meeting on Thursday morning of the environment and communities committee.
Cllr Tony Dean (Con) had told the environment committee the planning report would be available this month (October) adding: "It appears to have already made some interesting and effective changes and there are a lot more to come."
He said some staff had been recruited and the backlog is reducing. The Knutsford councillor also referred to two fast-track days, which had been held.
"These are for planning applications that have been stuck in the system for longer than they should have been, months usually," he said.
"And in those two days they got everybody in a room together, so you've got the arboriculturalist, the conservation officer, the planning officer, the highways people – 200 applications were completed in those two days."
The council's monitoring officer will be reporting back to the audit and governance committee regarding the reasons behind all the cancelled meetings.
The report on the planning department will go before a special meeting of the environment and communities committee later this month.
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