County Council cabinet member replaced after seven weeks in post

A member of Reform UK’s Derbyshire County Council cabinet has been replaced after seven weeks in their post.

Cllr Charlotte Gates, Reform councillor for the Swanwick & Riddings division, has been replaced by Cllr Simon Mabbott, councillor for Ilkeston South & Kirk Hallam as the support cabinet member for special educational needs.

The SEN support role is the sole “junior” cabinet position to have been retained by Reform with the previous Conservative administration having a back-up councillor for each of the nine “senior” positions.

Cllr Alan Graves says the decision to replace Cllr Gates was due to her “struggling to get to meetings”.

The county council website shows Cllr Gates has attended just one out of four meetings she was expected to be present for, sending apologies in her absence for each of the three meetings she missed – planning, full council and the appointments committee.

This included missing the first full council at which she was appointed into the cabinet support role, but being present at the very meeting where she was demoted. 

Meanwhile, Cllr Mabbott has been at all three meetings he was due to attend, two full councils and an audit committee meeting of which he is the chairman.

Cllr Graves told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “She was struggling to get to meetings, so we just thought that was a waste of a position so we gave it to somebody that can actually allocate the time to it.

“What we are doing is we are adjusting.

“I expected some of these teething problems, to understand who can do what and when and I have got another raft of changes to try and help sort that problem out.

“It is not a particular problem. All the committees are covered, I just want to make sure all the councillors are doing their bit for the council.

“None of the cabinet members are affected at all. Before they started I had to make sure they could allocate the time and they said they could.

“One chap, Cllr Sam Redfern (cabinet member for children and families), actually gave up his job.”