Proportionality is a crucial area of governance law, ensuring fairness and promoting balanced oversight. Understanding how proportionality and committee place allocation works is vital, as decisions made by committees with incorrect calculations of political group sizes can be challenged in the courts especially when the sizes of political groups change after elections/ by-elections. Misallocating places can also undermine democratic legitimacy and weaken scrutiny and accountability.

Delivered by colleagues from Barnet Council, this Masterclass will cover the law on proportionality and committee places; how to do the calculations; and how to treat independent or non-grouped Councillors. The Masterclass will include interactivity including practical exercises, and delegates with differing levels of experience will be grouped together to ensure the session is appropriate for all those attending.

This Masterclass is limited to 16 delegates to ensure all those attending derive maximum benefit.

Audience

This Masterclass is open to anyone responsible for or involved in proportionality calculations.

Salar Rida and Fiona Rae

Salar Rida, Governance Manager, London Borough of Barnet

Salar is the Governance lead for Cabinet and has extensive experience in people, project and change management. This includes the delivery of change of governance model workshops and acting as project lead for public participation and engagement review and consultation. Salar welcomes opportunities for networking and sharing information with colleagues.

Fiona Rae, Overview and Scrutiny Manager, London Borough of Barnet

Having started as a Business Support Officer for Wiltshire Council in 2014, Fiona was persuaded to join the Democratic Services Team and hasn’t looked back since! In 2015, she moved to London where she has since worked in a variety of boroughs. Fiona is also an enthusiastic ADSO representative for the London Region and is a Certificate Assessor. At Barnet, she leads the scrutiny function and the Member Development Programme and is always on the look out for opportunities for improvement.

Date and time

1 May 2026, 09.30 – 11.00

Cost

• ADSO Member rate – £100 + VAT per person to attend the course
• Non-ADSO Member rate – £125 + VAT per person to attend the course
• Terms and conditions for booking can be found here.

Booking requirements

• A purchase order number is required for all bookings made out to ADSO (please see note above).  Courses cannot be attended if a purchase order is not received.
• A hardcopy of the purchase order is required.
• Please provide us with your ADSO Membership number (if applicable)
• A few days after booking you will receive a calendar invite for the workshop(s).  Please note that your email address will be visible to all participants unless you advise us otherwise.
• Please send the above information to adsotraining@emcouncils.gov.uk.