Government advice to local authorities, which asked them to fill their vacant seats, has been branded ’absolutely laughable’ in Douglas Council.

Leader David Christian said guidance from the Department of Infrastructure to ensure democratic representation was ’nonsense’ and ’a complete and utter waste of ratepayer money.’

Following the postponement of the April election because of Covid-19, the DoI has sought to address uncertainty felt by commissioners as to how they go about filling their empty seats.

It comes as a number of vacancies across the island’s 21 local authorities came up between November and May, leaving some without full membership.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker says the changes to the election date created a ’confused picture’ and so guidance needed to be issued.

’The local government unit in the DoI is there to support and oversee the local authorities. But ultimately the local authorities are decision-making bodies.

’The guidance that has been sent out by the department tries to clarify what they ought to do.’

He said that some authorities had complex situations.

’Some have three vacancies which arose at different times and they are potentially affected by different rules.

’There’s a general rule that there is no need to hold a by-election within six months of an election date. But, with the election date being moved by six months, there is some confusion around that.’

He said that local authorities had an important role in democracy in the Isle of Man and the department needed to ensure that was being fulfilled.

’There’s a balance to be had. There’s a judgement call to be made and the decision has to be made by the local authority.’

He said that some authorities were going through changes, with some having fewer members in the future.

One of those is Douglas Council, which is meant to drop from 18 members to 12, with redrawn constituency boundaries.

At Douglas Council’s meeting, leader David Christian said Mr Baker’s advice was ’crackers’.

’It is absolutely laughable that we have been put in this position,’ he told members.

One ward in the council has only one member, instead of three.

Isle of Man Green Party councillor Andrew Bentley is the sole representative of Derby ward, the town’s smallest constituency.

Following the resignation of one member, and the death of former Mayor, Debbie Pitts, it now has two vacant seats.

Mr Bentley told the council that he has ’the capacity to manage the constituency’, and that any newly-elected councillors would ’only have enough time to find the light switches’.

At the next election, the political map of Douglas will be redrawn.

It means all six current council wards will cease to exist and the new wards will mirror the capital’s four House of Keys constituencies.

Councillor Christian said: ’It seems ludicrous now that we are being told that we should hold an election for a ward that will not exist from April next year to fill two vacancies.

cost

’That’s a cost if it’s a contested election to the candidates standing and to the ratepayers of Douglas.

’Then by the time you’ve trained people and they’ve found their way around the procedures and standing orders of council, their term will be up and they will have to stand in a completely different area if they want to continue.’

He added that if they had only two names put forward to fill the vacant seats two people would become councillors with no public mandate.

’It seems ludicrous that we’ve got a government that has taken us through the most difficult time since the war that they couldn’t come up with a way of ensuring that Douglas in particular - which still has 16 members - didn’t have to fill these vacancies.’

Last year, the council agreed to reduce the number of councillors from 18 to 12 and the number of wards from six to four.

The council has now advertised the two vacancies, with Mr Christian confirming that an approach for one of the seats has been made in writing.