Recent attendance and the six-month rule

What this report is for

The Recent Attendance report gives you a single council-wide view of how recently each serving councillor was last actually present at a meeting, so you can keep an eye on the six-month rule in section 85 of the Local Government Act 1972 and spot members who are drifting out of contact.

It is a monitoring aid, not legal advice - see the caution at the end of this page.

Where to find it

Go to People > Recent Attendance in the left-hand menu. The report lists every currently-serving councillor; the All Councillors button at the top takes you back to the councillor list.

How to read each row

Councillors are listed most urgent first - anyone already past six months appears at the top, then those approaching it, then everyone whose attendance is in good order, and finally those with nothing yet to report.

The six-month-rule labels

For a councillor who has been present at least once, the label is measured from that last Present date:

• OK - last present less than five months ago.
• Approaching - between five and six months since they were last present. The date the six months expires is shown beneath the label so you have time to act.
• Over 6 months - s.85 risk - more than six months since they were last present. The date the six months lapsed is shown.

For a councillor who has never been marked present, the clock runs instead from their start date - the date held on their profile:

• They show OK, then Approaching, then Never attended once six months have passed since they joined, exactly as if their start date were a "last present" date. Where a start date is held, the label reads "Never (since joined …)".
• If no start date is held at all, a councillor who has never been present is flagged Never attended straight away. New councillors are given today's date by default, so this only affects records where the Start date field has been cleared - fill it in to get a meaningful reading.

Two grey labels mean there is nothing to assess rather than a problem:

• No attendance recorded - the councillor has been listed on meetings, but no attendance status has ever been entered for any of them. This is also what you will see for recent meetings whose minutes have not been written yet. The rule cannot be assessed until a status is recorded.
• No meetings - the councillor has not yet been listed on any qualifying meeting.

The two rules behind the figures

The six-month clock is reset only by actually being present. Sending apologies (an Excused status) does not reset it. A member who sends apologies for six consecutive months still ceases to be a member unless the council approved the reason for absence in advance. For that reason the "Last present" date - and the six-month rule - key off the last Present entry only, never an Excused one.

The consecutive-absence count works differently. It counts the run of meetings marked Absent, newest first, and stops as soon as it reaches a Present or an Excused meeting. So apologies break the absence run even though they do not reset the six-month clock. Meetings where no attendance was recorded are skipped rather than counted either way; where there are unrecorded meetings since the last time the councillor was present, the row notes how many.

Which meetings count

The report counts Full Council and committee meetings only. The Annual Town (or Parish) Meeting is a meeting of the electors rather than of the council, so it is excluded, and working groups are excluded as well - a deliberate, cautious choice, as whether they count is legally doubtful.

This is different from the Attendance Summary on each councillor's profile page, which counts all meeting types but only within the current council cycle. The two figures are answering different questions, so they will not always match - see Attendance summary.

An important caution

CouncilPapers does not record whether the council approved a councillor's reason for absence in advance. A red s.85 risk flag therefore means "worth checking", not "automatically disqualified" - if the council resolved to approve the reason before the six months expired, the member keeps their seat. Treat this report as a prompt to check your minutes and take advice, not as a determination in itself. It is a monitoring aid, not legal advice.

When a councillor has genuinely ceased to be a member, removing them is a separate, deliberate step - see Retiring a councillor.