Water Resources Act 1963

Proceedings of river authorities and committees

14 The proceedings of a river authority, or of any committee appointed under this Schedule, shall not be invalidated by any vacancy in their number or by any defect in the appointment, or the qualification for appointment, of any person as a member, or as chairman or vice-chairman, of the authority or committee.

15 (1) A river authority may make rules with respect to—

(a) the proceedings (including quorum, place of meeting and notices to be given of meetings) of the authority or any committee appointed by the authority under paragraph 11 of this Schedule, and

(b) the appointment of a chairman and a vice-chairman of the authority or any such committee.

(2) The powers conferred by the preceding sub-paragraph may be exercised in relation to a joint committee appointed under paragraph 12 of this Schedule by the river authorities by which the committee was appointed.

(3) Subject to rules made under this paragraph, this proceedings of any committee appointed under this Schedule shall be such as the committee may determine.

16 (1) Any member of a river authority appointed by the National Coal Board may authorise another person—

(a) to attend in his stead at meetings of the authority, or of any committee appointed under this Schedule of which he is also a member, and

(b) to exercise on his behalf all or any of his rights as a member of the authority or committee ;

and, in relation to such a member, paragraph 5(1)(d) of this Schedule shall have effect accordingly.

(2) Any authority given under the preceding sub-paragraph shall be in writing, and may be given in respect of a particular meeting or in respect of all meetings until it expires or is revoked.

17 (1) Subject to the following provisions of this paragraph, the provisions of subsections (1) to (7) of section 76 of the Local Government Act 1933 (which relates to the disability of members of local authorities for voting on any question with respect to contracts, proposed contracts or other matters in which they have a pecuniary interest) shall apply in relation to members of a river authority, or of any committee appointed under this Schedule, as those provisions apply in relation to members of local authorities.

(2) In their application by virtue of this paragraph, the said provisions shall have effect as if, for the references therein to meetings of the local authority and the clerk of that authority, there were substituted respectively—

(a) in relation to members of a river authority, or of any committee appointed by a river authority under paragraph 11 of this Schedule, references to meetings of the river authority or, as the case may be, of the committee, and to the clerk of the river authority, and

(b) in relation to members of any joint committee, references to meetings of the committee, and to the clerk of the committee.

(3) Where a member of any committee appointed under paragraph 11 of this Schedule is not a member of the river authority by which the committee was appointed, the power conferred on him by subsection (5) of the said section 76, as applied by this paragraph, to inspect the book to be kept under that subsection shall be limited to an inspection of the entries in the book relating to members of the committee.

(4) Without prejudice to the proviso to subsection (1) of the said section 76 (which limits the disabilities imposed by that section), that section shall not by virtue of this paragraph apply—

(a) to any interest which a member of a river authority or committee may have in the preparation or revision of a charging scheme or in the raising of any drainage rates or the levying of any general or special drainage charges, or

(b) to any interest in any other matter which such a member may have as the holder of, or as an applicant or prospective applicant for, a licence under this Act, where it is an interest which he has in common with all other holders of, or applicants or prospective applicants for, such licences, or in common with all other persons belonging to a class of such holders, applicants or prospective applicants.

(5) The Ministers may, subject to such conditions as they may think fit to impose, remove any disability .imposed by the said section 76 in its application by virtue of this paragraph—

(a) in any case in which the number of members of a river authority or committee so disabled at any one time would, in the opinion of the Ministers, be so great a proportion of the whole as to impede the transaction of business, or

(b) in any other case in which, in the opinion of the Ministers, it is in the interest of the inhabitants of the river authority area or areas in question that the disability should be removed.

(6) Rules made under paragraph 15 of this Schedule may provide for the exclusion of a member of the river authority or committee to which they relate from a meeting of the authority or committee during the consideration of any matter in respect of which a disability is imposed on him by the said section 76 in its application by virtue of this paragraph.

18 (1) A minute of the proceedings of a meeting of a river authority, or of any committee appointed under this Schedule, purporting to be signed at that or the next ensuing meeting by the chairman of the meeting to the proceedings of which the minute relates, or by the chairman of the next ensuing meeting, shall be evidence of the proceedings, and shall be received in evidence without further proof; and until the contrary is proved, every meeting in respect of the proceedings of which a minute has been so signed shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the proceedings had at the meeting to have been duly had, and, where the proceedings are the proceedings of a committee, the committee shall be deemed to have been duly constituted and to have had power to deal with the matters referred to in the minute.

(2) Subject to the next following sub-paragraph, the minutes of proceedings of meetings of a river authority shall be open to the inspection of any local government elector for any part of the river authority area, on payment of a fee not exceeding one shilling, and any such local government elector may make a copy of, or extracts from, any such minutes.

In this sub-paragraph "local government elector " means a person registered as a local government elector in a register for the time being in force under the Representation of the People Acts.

(3) The last preceding sub-paragraph does not apply to any part of such minutes which contains information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained in the exercise of powers under this Act.