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R (Technoprint Plc / Snee) v Leeds City Council

Published: 15th January 2010

Where a local authority's constitution required it to agree its Scheme of Delegation every year, the High Court has held that there was no requirement for the Scheme to be agreed by an express resolution. Agreement by conduct, or by conduct and resolution, was sufficient.

Background:

Pursuant to the Local Government Act 2000, in 2001 Leeds City Council adopted a constitution which divided its functions into Executive and non-Executive. The non-Executive functions relating to town and country planning were delegated to the Director of Planning.

It was a requirement of the Constitution that the Scheme of Delegation be agreed by the full Council at its Annual meeting. In 2003 the full Council duly approved the Scheme. Between 2003 and 2008 the Constitutional Proposals Committee proposed and approved amendments to the Scheme which the Annual Meeting then approved. At the 2008 Annual meeting the Council again approved the Scheme in its entirety.

Facts:

In February 2008 the Director of Planning exercised his delegated power to approve an application for planning permission. The Claimant had objected to the application and subsequently applied to have the permission quashed for, amongst other things, a lack of delegated authority.

The Claimant based its argument on the grounds that the full Council had not agreed the Scheme of Delegation between 2003 and 2008 as was required by the Council's constitution. The High Court dismissed the Claimant's arguments and held that the word "agree", which was referred to in the Council's constitution, had to be given its ordinary and natural meaning. The Court held that on this interpretation "agree" meant agreement by express words, by conduct, or by a combination of the two. The Court refused to accept that the use of the word agree meant that the Council must agree the Scheme expressly by resolution. There was no argument that the Scheme of Delegation had been adopted, and further it was not disputed that in each subsequent year the Council had proceeded on the basis that the Constitution remained in force. Therefore the Court ruled that the Council had agreed a valid Scheme of Delegation each year.

The Court went on to say that even if there was not a valid Scheme of Delegation, it was not appropriate for the Court to grant any relief which would result in declaring unlawful those decisions which had been made in accordance with the Scheme between 2001 and 2008.

The Claimant also raised arguments arising out of s.100 of the Local Government Act 1972, which, it was argued, provides for copies of agendas and reports of meetings to be made available to the public at least 5 days before any principal Council meeting. The Claimant argued that copies of the reports on the amendments to the Scheme had not been made publicly available at least 5 days prior to the meeting in 2003 at which the Scheme was agreed. However, the court refused to uphold these arguments firstly because the section only applied to agendas and not reports and further because there was a proviso within s.100 which applied in these circumstances, that there was no requirement to make the documents available to the public before copies had been made available to members of the Council.

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