Leader of Rutland County Council councillor Gale Waller survived a vote of no confidence at a special meeting on Tuesday 5th August after a motion was put forward by seven Conservative councillors to remove her from leadership. 

The motion was defeated, with eight councillors voting to remove her as leader to 14 councillors voting against the motion and two abstaining. 

The motion was put forward by Cllr Lucy Stevenson (Con) and backed by her fellow Conservative councillors, with a statement of support from Rutland and Stamford MP Alicia Kearns. 

Councillor Lucy Stevenson raised the motion of no confidence to remove Cllr Waller from position as leader

The Conservative group were keen to assert that the motion of no confidence was nothing to do with party politics and instead in the best interest of the county. 

Councillor Waller, however, said she was surprised when the motion was put forward by the Conservative group. She said usually the removal of a council leader can be done 'quietly and pleasantly,' by having 'a quiet word with some of the friendly members of the group, and if they agree with you, they have a quiet word with the leader and achieve what you want to achieve.' 

When asked whether there were any lessons she would take from the meeting and apply going forward, Cllr Waller said 'Yes, of course. I'd be incredibly insensitive not to. I, and members of my group prior to the meeting, had sat down with the Independent Group and we had committed to continuing discussions with them. 

'One thing they asked for was to have more members briefings, but without our officers present. We have them once every two months. I can see the logic to that so I'm going to explore that with our officers. 

'I did go and talk to Councillor Carr after the meeting and said I thought she'd said some quite interesting things, and would she be prepared to sit down with me and go through them in detail? So, we're going to do that. We are looking at doing things differently.' 

Fourteen Councillors voted down the motion to remove Cllr Waller, compared to 8 votes in favour

When asked about what she would like to see happen within the council going forward, she said 'I would love to be able to work more closely with others and my door is always open to the MP to come and talk to me about how we could work together on this to get the best out of things for Rutland, and anybody who wants to contact me, I will respond to them and those residents who have know I will respond.' 

An interesting part of the Special Council Meeting on Tuesday was the massively different descriptions of the Council under current leadership, with the Conservative group calling out the leader for not managing Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) issues properly and operating too much on her own. 

However, Councillor Waller explained that, although the Conservative Group were claiming she had made the decision to sign the White Paper on her own. 

She said 'please do bear in mind that we have a Cross-Party Working Group on Local Government Reorganisation. 

'I was accused of not consulting before the March submission, but that had been agreed at that point by the people who are accusing me of not doing it.' 

She explained that early in the LGR process, the time frame for her to submit a response to the Government was such a tight turn around that there would not have been time to consult the public, and if there was time, there would have been no real information to consult on. 

She was shocked to be accused of handling matters herself and being accused of 'rail-roading' residents by the MP, as the key decisions were made with the Cross-Party Working Group. 

Something positive that came out of the meeting with all councillors was the open discussion of matters that the council are handling well.  

Cllr Waller said: 'our finances are now in a position that we can consider freezing Council tax,' through measures implemented by the Lib Dem Council. These included increasing recycling and bin collections, which reduces the cost of sending more waste to landfill. They have also rolled out on-demand bus services across the whole county, giving small villages access to bus transport for the first time. 

The successes within the council since being taken over by the Lib Dems were highlighted in the meeting, with many Councillors stating the need for 'stability' at this time, rather than disruption caused by a new leader taking over. 

It is clear from speaking to Councillor Waller that the weight of the no confidence vote has been felt and has opened her eyes to the need for better communication across parties, as well as led to her inviting fellow councillors, the MP and members of the public to get in touch with problems to her directly so a resolution can be found, rather than speaking publicly without any means for change.