West Surrey rulebook group asks to meet in private

The seven councillors writing the rulebook for the council that will replace Spelthorne have been asked to stop meeting in public.

A report going to the West Surrey Shadow Authority’s Constitution Sub-Committee on Thursday 27 August recommends disbanding the sub-committee and replacing it with a Constitution Working Group, with the same seven members, the same chair and the same job.

The difference is what the public gets to see. The report sets it out in a table of its own. As a sub-committee, constituted under section 102 of the Local Government Act 1972, the group must:

• meet in public, under section 100A of the Act
• publish a summons at least five clear working days before each meeting
• publish the reports it considers
• produce, publish and agree minutes as an accurate record
• keep members physically present in the room to vote

As a working group, none of that would apply. Meetings would not have to be accessible to the public. There would be no legal requirement to publish a summons, reports would be circulated to members but not published, and minutes would not be produced at all. An action log would be kept instead. Items could be added to the agenda inside the five-day window, and members could attend and vote remotely.

The report does not hide the effect. It states plainly that under a working group “there would be less opportunity for public engagement, scrutiny and transparency”, and lists it again under key risks: “their meetings will not be open to the public and their papers will not be published”.

Why officers say it is needed

The case made by Susan Sale, the shadow authority’s interim monitoring officer, is about attendance and pace rather than secrecy.

The sub-committee needs three of its seven members physically present to be quorate. Under working group rules the quorum stays at three but members can join remotely. The report argues this would give “a consistent group of members working on this project” instead of a rotating cast of substitutes, which matters when the output of one meeting feeds into the next.

It also points to the size of the job and the size of the area. Many councillors are “double hatters” sitting on both a borough and the shadow authority, and West Surrey covers six boroughs, so evening travel across it is substantial.

The safeguard offered is that the group would decide nothing. Its recommendations would still go to the Standards Committee, which does meet in public with published agendas and reports, and which the public can attend and question.

The idea came from the councillors themselves. At the sub-committee’s first meeting on 6 August they discussed changing into a working group to allow remote participation and voting and asked officers to bring back a report on how it could be done.

What is being written, and by when

This is not a minor housekeeping committee. The group is drafting the constitution for West Surrey Council itself: the articles, procedure rules and codes that will govern how the new authority takes decisions.

Its terms of reference require a final draft constitution to reach the Standards Committee by 31 December 2026, and the sub-committee has already agreed to work through the council procedure rules in parts at its September, October and November meetings. Under the proposal, those three sessions would be the ones held in private.

One Spelthorne councillor sits on the group: Cllr Rory O’Brien, who represents Sunbury Common and Ashford Common. The chair is Cllr Joanne Shaw of Guildford East and the vice chair Cllr Louise Morales of Woking South, both elected at the 6 August meeting.

The council that replaces Spelthorne

Spelthorne Borough Council will cease to exist on 1 April 2027, along with Surrey County Council. In its place, West Surrey Council will be a single unitary authority covering Guildford, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Waverley and Woking, taking on both borough services such as bins and planning and county services such as roads, schools and social care.

The shadow authority preparing for it is made up of councillors returned at the local elections in May 2026, and it held its inaugural meeting on Thursday 21 May, when it adopted its own constitution. Existing councils and councillors continue as normal until vesting day.

The new authority may not keep the name. On Thursday 30 July 2026 councillors backed a motion asking the government to rename it West Surrey and South Middlesex Council, on the grounds that Spelthorne’s historic identity is Middlesex rather than Surrey. The Surrey LGR Hub says the change would reflect “the historic identity of Spelthorne” and that the formal request now awaits government approval.

What happens next

The proposal has three stages, and only the first two are open to the public:

If all three agree, the sub-committee is disbanded and the working group starts immediately. The monitoring officer would be delegated authority to amend the constitution accordingly.

What it means for you

Nothing about your bins, council tax or planning application changes because of this. What changes is how much you can see of the drafting of the rules the new council will run on.

If you want to follow it or object:

• The 2 September Standards Committee meets in Staines, at the Knowle Green council offices, at 2.00pm. It is a public meeting and papers are published in the week beforehand on the Spelthorne democracy site.
• You can subscribe to meeting updates by email rather than checking the calendar.
• Committee Services confirms whether a meeting is going ahead: committee.services@spelthorne.gov.uk
• Broader questions about the reorganisation are answered on the Surrey LGR Hub.

Even if the change is approved, the Standards Committee and the full shadow authority will still take the constitution in public, and the final document must be adopted at a public meeting. The private stage would be the drafting, which is where most of the detail is settled.

Our Staines planning news page tracks the decisions Spelthorne is still taking in the meantime.