A row at County Hall yesterday evening (Tuesday) led to the resignation and walkout of a prominent Isle of Wight councillor from his position on a major watchdog committee.
Councillor Peter Spink, who was the vice chair of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee, cited a ‘manipulation’ of the committee’s agenda by its chair, Clare Mosdell, in an email sent last night explaining his decision.
At yesterday’s meeting, a majority of the committee’s members voted not to discuss the government’s controversial devolution plans contained in the English Devolution White Paper due to an Extraordinary General Meeting of County Hall’s Full Council being called on the matter this evening.
Cllr Spink subsequently walked out of the chamber, describing the decision as a ‘dereliction of our duty’.
Devolution refers to the transfer or delegation of power from central government to local or regional administrations.
Cllr Spink said:
“I’m afraid that I can no longer serve on a committee led by a chair who, in my opinion, does not understand the nature of the important role that corporate scrutiny performs and who manipulates the agenda to suit her own purposes.
“Tonight is not the first time that you have done this. Agenda items should not be withdrawn without good reason.
“The fact that Full Council will debate the matter tomorrow is not ‘good reason’ as it is not the decision maker.
“Your manipulation has stifled corporate scrutiny from making recommendations to the decision maker (i.e. cabinet) and has resulted in a dereliction of the duty owed by the committee that you chair.”
In an email sent to both Cllr Spink and the press this morning, Councillor Geoff Brodie, representative for Pan and Barton, hit back at the representative for Freshwater North and Yarmouth’s accusations.
Cllr Brodie said:
“Last night’s agenda was not manipulated. It was managed democratically with a majority agreeing not to discuss devolution etc as it is the subject of an extraordinary council meeting tonight which is intended to make recommendations to cabinet the following evening.
"It would have just been a duplication.
“Last night’s meeting lasted the full three hours with nearly an hour and a half spent on the appalling 2025-26 budget position – which is as usual the most important matter facing councillors.
“The rest was spent on the rest of the cabinet agenda, which has seven important items that will affect and hopefully ’empower’ the lives of Islanders.
“I am pleased that you have resigned as vice chair of the committee as no councillor should receive a special responsibility allowance, as that role attracts, for abdicating that responsibility.”
Cllr Mosdell said at yesterday’s meeting:
“There is an EGM tomorrow to discuss devolution – it’s a very important meeting.
“I know that an awful lot of my group who work have changed their meetings etc to come to be part of that discussion tomorrow.
“I think it’s really important they feel that they’re an equal part of it and if we discuss it at scrutiny tonight, we will be taking away some of their opinions that could be shared tomorrow evening.
“There are lots of things on the (corporate scrutiny) agenda that are really important to my residents – they’ve been waiting for a long time – such as the speed review etc.
“That’s not taking away your democratic rights – it’s just to make sure we have what we’ve been asking for the whole time – a proper democratic discussion across Full Council tomorrow.”
The English Devolution White Paper includes proposals to reorganise local government: replacing two-tier local government structures, county and district councils, with unitary authorities, increasing the size and scale of existing unitary authorities where there is evidence of failure or hindered service delivery and new unitary authorities having a population of at least 500,000, with some exceptions.
Cllr Spink and Cllr Mosdell have been approached for further comment.
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