Leicester city councillors facing a grilling over attendance

Leicester city council Labour group's whip says she has had to "have a word" with some of the party's members about their attendance levels at meetings.

Councillor Barbara Potter, who is in charge of keeping discipline among the 51 Labour members sitting on the authority, said she was concerned a number of them were not going to enough meetings at the Town Hall.

Today, the Leicester Mercury publishes the attendance rates of all the city's politicians for the meetings they were expected to attend, between May last year and Tuesday.

Each member is expected to attend all of the seven full council meetings a year and may sit on one or more committees.

Attendance records are published on the council's website.

Three councillors had a 100 per cent attendance rate over the past 16 months.

A number have been present at about half the meetings they were expected at but said illness affected their attendance.

Coun Potter, who herself has a 97 per cent attendance rate, said: "Councillors have a duty to attend meetings, particularly when they are claiming allowances for them.

"In some cases, they have had health issues that have been cleared with me but for some I have had to have a word because they are not attending enough."

She did not name any particular councillors but Councillor Iqbal Desai, who represents Stoneygate, was asked to resign from the party following concerns about his attendance.

Since May 2011, he has been to 45 of 72 meetings. He was not available for comment yesterday.

Coun Potter said ill health had prevented Anne Glover, who represents Braunstone Park and Rowley Fields, from attending.

Coun Glover, who has a 46 per cent attendance record, said: "I have been seriously ill and I am still unwell.

"I do not like being unable to fire on all cylinders.

"I have discussed this with the whip and said that if I am not right by Christmas I will stand down.

Coun Glover said that there was more to being a councillor than attending meetings.

She said: "I still do a lot in my ward. I do my very best for people in my area and they know that."

Veteran Labour councillor John Thomas, who has a 63 per cent attendance record, agreed. He said he was more concerned about representing and campaigning for people in his Belgrave ward than attending meetings.

He said: "Being on the council is about getting out and working for people, not about sitting in the town hall or Faulty Towers (the nickname for the city council's soon to be demolished New Walk headquarters) firing off e-mails and trying to look important."

Liberal Democrat councillor Nigel Porter, who represents Aylestone, disputed his attendance figures as they appeared on the city council's website.

He was recorded as attending 54 of 87 meetings.

He said: "That's just not right. I'm down as being on committees I am not a member of and attending some meetings that I know I have not been to.

" I'll be taking it up with officers because my attendance is higher than it suggests."

The Mercury tried to contact a number of other councillors with lower attendance records, including former leader Veejay Patel and ex-lord mayor Rob Wann, but they were unavailable.

Castle ward councillor Neil Clayton attended all 43 of the meetings he was due at.

He said: "I don't find the meetings onerous.

"I am fortunate because, as chairman of a scrutiny commission, those meetings can only happen when I can be there.

"I also work in the city and don't have the family commitments some other councillors do. Some have had a pretty awful run with health and I have been lucky in that respect."

A city council spokeswoman said the authority had no power to make members attend meetings, but anyone who did not attend a meeting in six months would be struck off unless they had an approved reason for not turning up.