Cardiff councillors attended every meeting in 12‑month period 2026

Key Points

• However, only 13 out of 79 councillors from Cardiff Council attended all their meetings from May 2025 to May 2026.
• Seventeen councillors attended less than 75% of the meetings in the same period.
• The average attendance figure among councillors in Cardiff was 86%, placing the council at position 51 out of 274 UK councils.
• Councillor Caro Wild (Welsh Labour, Riverside) had the lowest attendance figure at 37%.
• Councillor Sian-Elin Melbourne (Welsh Conservatives, Lisvane and Thornhill) attended 47% of the meetings.
• Councillor Claudia Boes (Welsh Labour, Fairwater) attended 50% of the meetings.
• Cardiff stands third place in terms of attendance in Wales after Monmouthshire (92%) and Merthyr Tydfil (88%).
• The salary of a councillor during this period stood at £19,771; the current salary is £21,044.
• The group leader from the Conservative Party provided the background in terms of work and diversity of representation.
• The Labour group indicated that attendance figures without background do not tell the full story.

Cardiff (Wales Times) September 04, 2026 – New transparency data shows that only 13 of the 79 elected members on uk/local/cardiff/cardiff-council/">Cardiff Council attended every meeting they were expected to over a 12‑month period, while 17 councillors turned up to fewer than three‑quarters of those meetings. The figures, compiled by the local government watchdog Local Democracy UK for the period May 2025 to May 2026, place Cardiff’s average councillor attendance at 86%, ranking it 51st out of 274 councils across the UK. Within Wales, Cardiff sits third, behind Monmouthshire at 92% and Merthyr Tydfil at 88%.

Who had the highest and lowest attendance rates?

The councillor with the lowest recorded attendance was Caro Wild, a Welsh Labour member representing the Riverside ward, who attended 37% of meetings in the monitored period. He was followed by Sian‑Elin Melbourne of the Welsh Conservatives, who represents Lisvane and Thornhill and attended 47% of meetings. Claudia Boes, a Welsh Labour councillor for Fairwater, attended half of the meetings she was scheduled for, at 50%. At the other end of the scale, 13 councillors achieved a perfect attendance record, turning up to every meeting they were supposed to attend between May 2025 and May 2026.

How does Cardiff’s attendance compare across the UK and Wales?

Local Democracy UK’s dataset positions Cardiff’s 86% average attendance rate in the middle tier nationally, at 51st out of 274 councils. In a Welsh context, the capital ranks third, with Monmouthshire Council leading at 92% (fourth in the UK) and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council at 88% (27th in the UK). The ranking reflects the proportion of scheduled meetings attended by councillors on average, rather than the number of meetings held or the length of those meetings.

What do the figures mean for pay and public scrutiny?

According to the council, each Cardiff councillor is currently entitled to a basic salary of £21,044 per year, with higher salaries for cabinet members, committee chairs, group leaders and the council leader. During the year the attendance data was collected, the basic salary for councillors was £19,771. The publication of attendance statistics by Local Democracy UK is intended to increase transparency around elected members’ participation in formal council business, though parties and individual councillors have emphasised that much work occurs outside scheduled meetings.

What have the political groups said about the attendance data?

As reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Conservative group leader at the council, Councillor John Lancaster, said: “While it is important that statistics like this are made publicly available, it is also important to understand the context behind them.” He added: “Councillors are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds from around the whole community. Some members hold down full-time jobs as well as undertaking their council work.” Referring specifically to Councillor Melbourne, he said: “Councillor Melbourne is also a high school teacher; while this can sometimes give rise to attendance clashes due to unavoidable or unexpected work commitments, councillor Melbourne is the only Cardiff councillor to also be a full-time schoolteacher, which brings a unique perspective to an important aspect of the council’s work in education.” He concluded: “It is also important to encourage a diversity of representation and professional experience amongst elected representatives.”

A spokesperson for the council’s Labour group said: “The Labour Group won’t be commenting on individual members’ personal circumstances, and attendance data without context doesn’t provide a complete picture of councillors’ work, much of which takes place outside of formal meetings.”

Why does meeting attendance matter for local democracy?

Formal council meetings are where key decisions on budgets, policies, planning and services are debated and voted on, making attendance a core component of representative accountability. Transparency campaigners argue that consistent participation helps ensure that constituents’ interests are represented in deliberations and that decisions reflect a broad range of elected voices. At the same time, councillors and party groups note that elected members also engage in casework, community meetings, committee prep, and constituency surgeries that do not always appear in meeting attendance logs.

Background to the development

The attendance figures emerge from Local Democracy UK, a local government transparency watchdog that compiles and publishes councillor meeting attendance data to enable public scrutiny of elected representatives’ participation in formal council business. The dataset for Cardiff covers May 2025 to May 2026 and identifies both the councillors with perfect attendance and those falling below the 75% threshold. The release of the data coincides with ongoing public debate about the balance between elected members’ external work commitments and their duties on the council, as well as the adequacy of basic allowances in relation to the time demands of the role. Cardiff’s current basic councillor salary is £21,044, up from £19,771 during the monitored period, according to the council.

Prediction: how this could affect Cardiff residents and local accountability

If attendance data continues to be published regularly, Cardiff residents may use it to gauge how consistently their ward representatives participate in formal decision‑making, potentially influencing voter perceptions ahead of future elections. For constituents in wards with lower attendance, the figures could prompt questions about representation and the capacity of councillors to engage fully with council business, while for wards with high attendance, the data may reinforce confidence in their elected members’ presence at key meetings. For the council as an institution, sustained transparency could encourage internal reviews of meeting scheduling, support for councillors with external employment, and clearer communication about the full scope of councillors’ work beyond the chamber.