Now a School Governor cannot act lawfully act independently, but a
Councillor can (in a similar manner to a Member of Parliament). Indeed a
Councillor may fulfil any one of the following three quite separate and
distinct roles:
1. Acting on behalf of the Council (where s/he is covered by the Council's
own DPA registration).
2. Acting as a political agent. If this is on behalf of a political party,
then this will normally be covered by the political party's/association's
DPA registration. If the Councillor stands as an independent, they may need
to be registered in their own right in respect of automated processing of
canvassing and other matters that relate solely to getting themselves
(re-)elected as it would be wrong to use public funds to cover such a
registration).
3. Acting as a ward councillor, dealing with constituent's problems, etc.
This is the type of DPA registration that I understood us to be discussing.
It is here that the Councillor acts as an independent legal entity in
her/his own right. And, IMHO, it is quite right and proper that the costs of
this should be met from the public purse, in the same way as other expenses
(e.g travelling from home to meetings) reasonably incurred as a result of
being elected to public office. Indeed, for the first time ever, the
Government have recently introduced legislation allowing Parish/Town
Councillors to be paid allowances. Perhaps this could be one such expense
that all Parishes should ensure is met?
--
Graham Smith
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
available to the world wide web community at large at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
(all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|