Nottinghamshire County Council has written to the Government outlining its position on whether it should have the power to hold some meetings remotely.

It comes after a consultation document was issued to all local authorities asking for feedback on whether committee and cabinet meetings should be held virtually.

The Government wants to give councils more flexibility to allow elected members to attend formal council meetings remotely as part of a move to help them have a more diverse representation and resilience if national emergencies occur.

Temporary measures were brought in during the Covid-19 pandemic to allow local authorities to meet online or in a hybrid format.

However, a court ruled in 2021 that meetings should take place at ‘a single, specified geographical location’ and that councillors should be ‘physically present’.

Now the county council’s Governance and Ethics Committee has met to discuss the Government’s consultation, with councillors agreeing that councils should be ‘enabled and trusted’ to ‘utilise greater flexibility at their discretion’.

Committee Chairman, Councillor Philip Owen, said: “The nature of our response is that whilst we, as a council, welcome the additional flexibility which the ability to attend meetings remotely could offer, we feel this authority, and all other councils should have the ability to decide how that will work in practice.

“Each local authority should be given the freedom to determine its own rules to suit, and that was the overwhelming view expressed by councillors who discussed the matter at our latest committee meeting.

“A common-sense approach should be taken with this and by submitting our response I believe we are helping to shape and influence the national agenda.”

As part of the consultation exercise, the committee rejected proposals for proxy voting to take place remotely citing that it would run against ‘good practice’.

Cllr Owen added: “Members of the Governance and Ethics Committee felt that the facility for proxy voting was open to misuse, inappropriate political control and challenges on the grounds of pre-determination.”

Proxy voting is a form of voting where a member of a decision-making body may delegate their voting power to another representative to enable a vote in their absence.

The Government’s consultation process closes on 19 December.