Councillors from the Green group, who form the official opposition to Reform UK at the county council, commented today on the Section 5A report the council has produced about breaching legal procedures when it decided to lodge a legal challenge to the government over Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
The Leader of the council made an executive decision on 18 June 2026 to make a legal challenge to the government over their decision to create three unitary councils for Suffolk in April 2028.
There were then delays to the publication of the report on the legal challenge, which was due to be discussed by councillors at an Extraordinary Cabinet meeting on Monday 29 June. In the end, the report was published but with councillors only able to read the confidential legal advice one working day before the meeting, and only if they travelled in person to Endeavour House to view it in person. This day – Friday 26 June – was the hottest ever recorded in the UK, with a red extreme heat warning issued by the Met Office advising against all but essential travel.
At the Extraordinary meeting, Cabinet voted to ratify the decision to make the legal challenge, which had been made by the Leader of the council as an executive decision on 18 June. Following a challenge to this process made by opposition councillors, the council admitted that there had been two breaches of the Local Government and Housing 1989 during the process: firstly, that the executive decision made on the 18 June should have been published by the council ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ after it was made, but that this was not done until 26 June, the last working day before the Extraordinary meeting.
Secondly, that a member of the council’s Scrutiny Committee was not provided with information about the executive decision within the legal 10-day timescale.
The council accepted that it must produce a ‘Section 5A’ report detailing the legal breaches, with councillors being told that this would likely be looked at in October. The Section 5a report was circulated to councillors this Wednesday and added to the agenda for the council’s Cabinet meeting next Thursday.
It found that the council had breached the regulations in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 as outlined above but stated that the breaches were ‘minor and inadvertent.’
Andrew Stringer, Leader of the Green group and its Spokesperson for Local Government and Devolution, said:
“It was difficult for my group to believe in June that we were not being deliberately kept in the dark by the Reform UK administration over the decision to launch a legal challenge against the government, and the legal advice the council received about it. It was pretty shambolic.
Around the same time, we were informed there might be an urgent meeting about changes to the council’s constitution, but then it was cancelled almost immediately. We still have no idea what that was about.
We feel vindicated that the Section 5A report finds that the council did not follow legal procedures in the way this was dealt with.
Whether the breaches were inadvertent or not, it is a fact that the council broke its own procedures in challenging the government for breaching its own procedures.
As councillors we have requested a briefing on the Section 5A report before the meeting next Thursday, but this has been declined.
Councillors kept in the dark, procedures not being followed.
This is all proof positive that as we have said before, Reform UK are simply not fit or competent to run this council.”
