Society’s Board Review of Declaring Detailed SDC Election Results

The Society’s Board Review and Conclusion re Detailed Election Results

At the SDC AGM in May 2025 questions were raised from SDC Voting Members re the specific actual vote counts from the elections and specifically the trustee elections. The Election Process is specifically dealt with in SDC Rules 101-103, where it states that the result of the ballot shall be declared by the Honorary Secretary at the next Annual General Meeting. It is not specified if that is a declaration of those elected or the vote count by number including those who are not elected.

The Society’s Board therefore took advice from a charity lawyer who is nationally recognised as a leader in the field. The response from this advice is supplied in full in the attached letter.

The advice acknowledged the SDC current process follows best practice, especially in the use of an external election services provider and in not communicating the number of votes received per candidate. In addition to the external service provider the specific results are known only by the SDC Chief Executive Officer and the SDC Honorary Secretary, thus ensuring adherence to the outcome internally.

The charity legal advice therefore is to keep the full results confidential from both members and trustees.

The Society’s Board acknowledge that full results have been declared to all members in some years in the past but, for the current and future elections, will accept the recommendations of expert advice and only declare those elected.

At the 2025 elections the trustees elected were: Dr Ela Dedhia, Eamon Furey, Dr Siva Pariti, Gavin Thatcher, Paul Santokhi & Dr Jane Wood. In order to regain the position covered in SDC Rule 96 where no more than a third of the Board members [trustees] retire at any one time, by mutual consent of elected trustees, terms of office were agreed as follows (which was declared at the 2025 AGM):