Living in Shropshie, I have just found out that our local county councillor voted for the closure of local schools (of which ours was one). There was a 'u' turn on the voting last week (probably due to the government advising that mass closures were illegal), but it has left me very uneasy. There did not appear to be ANY consideration of the wishes of our community, or on the short and long term impact. These are the people who are meant to represent us and make decisions which impact on our lives. Are they in touch with the community? NO.Do we feel able to influence decision making? NO DEFINITELY NOT (The results of a public questionnaire on the process was totally ignored)!More power at a local level? The only power at local level will come next year with elections!

Having worked within the parish sector for many years, I welcome the main thrust of the recommendations but am aghast that Rec 9 ignores the stupendous work of CALCs, NALC and the SLCC in supporting parish/town councillors & clerks. This is where the experienced practitioners sit - not in the RCCs which have a very different role. Such ignorance is worrying if these organisations are to be properly funded according to their roles and government expectations.

Last week I attended the launch in London  of the Commission for Rural Communities Report “Strengthening the Role of Local Councillors“.

I have to say that, as a Rural Parish Councillor of around 20 years experience, I was very disappointed both at the contents of the Report, which I feel has largely ignored Parish Councils and concentrated on the higher tiers of Local Government, despite the fact that Parish Councils form by far the largest group of Councils and Councillors (50,000 out of 70,000 according to the CRC figures themselves !) and at the manner in which it was presented, which made it very difficult for people like myself to question or make suggestions about the Report.  This is despite the fact that the ‘Councillors Commission’, chaired by Dame Jane Roberts, and which reported in December 2007, was supposed to be looking at the higher tiers of Local Councils, dealing with politically motivated Councillors,  leaving the CRC to look at the lower tiers i.e Town and particularly Parish Councils, where all Councillors are volunteers and generally speaking, party politics is absent !

I also felt that the vast majority of the Recommendations of the Commission, rather than helping Parish Councillors, as it was suggested they were designed to do, will have exactly the opposite effect and will cause a further decline in the numbers of people who are willing to freely give up their time to serve their communities, when more and more bureaucracy is heaped upon them.  For, whilst no doubt the Commission is well meaning, introducing even more ‘initiatives’, as they have, which will in time no doubt become requirements,  as has happened many times previously, will only load already overworked Councillors with more and more tasks that they are forced to undertake, whether they feel it is something their community would want or not, leaving them less time and money to do the things that their communities actually do want! 

Indeed, I do wonder if the Commission have really thought about the fact that ALL Parish Councillors are volunteers, and I would have thought that, as a general rule, volunteers do not like to be totally dictated to and, if they are, as is happening to a greater degree now than ever before, they are liable to vote with their feet and take their goodwill and energy elsewhere to a less prescriptive environment where perhaps their efforts are less regulated and more appreciated.  I am certainly considering doing this!

I think that perhaps also in all of this, it is forgotten by the Commission that, whilst the larger Parish Councils and Town Councils may well be able to deal with all the bureaucracy as,  with their much larger budgets, they can afford to employ the specialist staff to undertake all the necessary work, the smaller councils, which receive almost as much of the bureaucratic material as their larger cousins (and certainly much more in proportion to their size), do not have this ability and thus have to try and deal with it themselves.  This can not only take up most of their time, but also most of their precepts, leaving them little or nothing in respect of both time and money with which to help their communities, which is their main objective and for most, their main motivation for becoming a Parish Councillor.

And it is not as though there are only a few smaller councils – for example, in the Huntingdon District Council area where I am situated, of 84 Town and Parish Councils, 63 (i.e. 75 %) have precepts below £25,000 !  I don’t know if our area is unusual in this regard, but I suspect not.

So, what is actually required is some way of relieving these smaller Parish Councils of a significant proportion of their bureaucratic burden and then Parish Councillors might be able to achieve the things they would like to do to help their community, rather than push paper and spend the precept on useless, unproductive bureaucracy and then, just maybe, more people might be interested in taking part ! It is interesting that, at long last this is being realised in relation to the Police, so why not small Parish Councils ?

As organiser of a Petition on the No 10 Downing Street Website (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveCouncils/ ), asking the Prime Minister to consider reducing the bureaucratic burden of small Parish Councils,  that is receiving a significant number of signatories, particularly considering its perhaps rather limited likely audience, I am receiving emails from all over the country from Parish Councillors and Parish Clerks confirming my own experience.  Perhaps the Commission, rather than talking to lots of highly qualified people who, perhaps in the jargon of the moment, ‘have an interest’ in increasing bureaucracy, to help build their own power base,  should get out their and talk to far more Parish Councils at the ‘sharp end’ 

For, in my view, the people from organisations such as NALC and their local offshoots, do NOT appear to be there to ASK Parish Councils how they are doing, what are their problems and what they might do to help, but much more to TELL them what government wants them to do, to push for ever more bureaucracy, as I noted they were doing at the CRC launch, and to cajole them into complying with the requests that governments (of ALL colours) pass onto them.

Finally, I would relate the fact that, during a conversation over lunch at the recent launch of the CRC Report, between myself and my colleague, with a member of the CRC Staff, during which we put across our views and our very difficult experiences on a small Parish Council, the member of the CRC staff ended our conversation, without apparently realising the significance or incongruity of what he was doing, by saying that perhaps he ought to make a visit to his own local Parish Council, as he had never actually been to a Parish Council Meeting !! 

Perhaps that best sums up why the CRC does not appear to have much idea about the workings of small, rural Parish Councils and how to put things right, despite all their deliberations !

 

 

Dear Allan -Thank you for this comprehensive feedback.  To take your points in turn.  By far and away the largest number of respondents to our call for evidence were parish councils/councillors (100 out of the 169 responses received). Also, out of the 35 or so hearings held up and down the country - a good degree of participants came representing their own parish councils.  I do  not , therefore, accept that we have overlooked the parish and town council tier.  Moreover - the Jane Roberts report has also included parish councils in both it's evidence gathering and reporting.  However, if you feel we have gaps in our evidence base or have neglected important points in our reporting I would be interested to hear about this.  We continue to work closely with Jane Roberts and her commissioners as their and our recommendations move forward.

I do accept some of what you are saying about the difficulties smaller parishes have when compared to some of their larger counterparts.  We have made some attempts to highlight solutions to help smaller parishes punch above their weight.  For example, encouraging smaller parishes to consider clustering their collective needs/skills/budgets together.  This - we have seen at first hand - has allowed many parishes to take on more power and service delivery - combining skills of councillors and addressing collective needs of communities more effectively.But your broader point about parish councillors being volunteers is very valid.  We do recognise the valuable time given to communities by capable councillors who volunteer their time freely.     Furthermore, we have recognised the very real - and often disproportionately felt - strains placed upon parish councillors.  Our report has been quite clear about this.  I also accept that more could be done beyond what our research is saying and recommending.  The councillors Commission do touch upon these points and government will be responding to their recommendations in March.  But I would like to link to your petition on our web-site to highlight our support and increase attention for others to add their views around this very important issue.  Just on your related point however, if you could be a little more specific about the recommendations we have made which you feel will add to parish council bureaucracy. I would be more than happy to respond to this point in more detail if you can highlight which of our recs. are adding to the burdens identified.I do not agree with your observations made about NALC and their respective county associations. NALC and their CALCs offer a huge source of support and expertise to local parish councils.  We have and will continue to work with NALC and their CALCs as we move forward.  Moreover, we would encourage all parish councils to make their collective influence and voices stronger by working more closely with NALC and their associated CALCs.Finally -  while I suspect we will have to agree to disagree on some of your points and our evidence base/recommendations - I do hope this will not inhibit further contribution from you as we [the CRC] take our recommendations forward.  We are still in listening mode.  If you genuinely feel we are missing important information or have misrepresented some parish councils' situations - I am open to hearing more details about this. 

Dear John,

 

Thank you for replying to my comments.

 

Dealing with the matters you have raised, you talk about the number of respondents you had during the consultation (which incidentally we knew nothing of before we were invited to the presentation of the recommendations) and talk about a total of 169 respondents, of whom 100 were “parish councils/councillors”. Well firstly, this does not seem to me to be a very large number, given this was supposed to be a national consultation and there are reckoned to be something like 50,000 Parish Councillors in the country – I suspect that, like us, most of them had no idea that a Consultation was even taking place !  Then I note that, in the Commission’s Report, it actually says that the 100 were from “Parish and town councils and councillors and local associations of such councils”, so even this small this number was NOT all from Parish Councils/Councillors, as you suggest.  So, perhaps you could tell us, how many of the 100 were actually Parish Councillors ?  Indeed, I think whenever numbers are mentioned, they should be broken down into the various classes i.e. Parish Councillors, Town Councillors, District Councillors etc.  For, it is my view that the sector that need the most help and indeed which has by far the largest  majority of the Councillors in the country, are Parish Councillors in small Parish Councils and this is the very area that all such enquiries/commissions etc. seem to largely ignore !

 

It seems to me that whilst all the bureaucracy involved these days in Local Councils of all descriptions, is generally regarded as a nuisance, at least the larger councils have the funds available to them to hire the professional staff necessary to successfully deal with it.  This is NOT the case with the smaller Parish Councils and they need special consideration if they are not to wither and die !

 

Indeed, if we are talking about numbers, then perhaps you would like to think about the fact that, the Petition I have single-handedly promoted, has of today’s date (20^th February 2008) now received 312 signatures, which is already about twice as many as the Commission with all their money and staff managed to get for their consultation. Also, the Petition is now, despite its rather uninspiring topic as far as probably most of the general public are concerned,  about 35^th on the list out of 963 Petitions in the ‘Government, Politics and Public Administration’ section, which might be taken to contain more of the serious minded Petitions than perhaps other sections of the No. 10 Downing Street Website !

 

You make the point that the Commission does ‘touch upon’ various matters concerned with Parish Councils, and this is true, but it is only a small touch in a very large report – nothing like enough considering that Parish Councillors make up the largest single group of Councillors in the country - I would like to see a Report focusing MAINLY on Parish Councillors and Parish Councils, and in particular, SMALL Parish Councils, who are suffering disproportionately at the moment !

 

With regard to examples of where the Commissions recommendations either initially or eventually will lead to additional burdens upon Parish Councils, I would particularly refer you to Recommendation 7, which talks about an ‘expectation’ that all Parish Councils should provide an Annual Report to their constituents and Recommendation 8 which talks about ‘supporting ‘ such things as Parish Plans (which of course are already available to parish’s, but which for some reason, do not seem to be having a great take up – I wonder why !).  Whilst the recommendations don’t actually say these must be mandatory, this is exactly how many of the rules and regulations begin – as ‘recommendations ‘, but then over the years become rules and regulations.  And who exactly do you think is going to draw up a Parish Annual Report and the Parish Plan ?  Are the Commission planning to supply Parish Councils with staff to do this for them – I think not !  It will, as usual, be the Parish Councillors who will be expected to add this to the list of duties they MUST perform. 

 

Then there is the idea that, by reducing the number of Councillors in each Parish, this will encourage competition at elections !! Does the Commission take people for fools?  Surely anybody can work out that, if you have a set amount of bureaucratic duties to perform (as we do, virtually independant of our size) and you reduce the number of people there are to deal with it, that this increases the workload for each Councillor!  So who in their right mind is likely to think that this is a good idea and that they would love a fight in an election to try and do all this extra work !

 

There are other examples I could go into, but I have already gone on rather more than I originally intended !

 

However, I would like to end by asking you to point out to me, where in all the recommendations etc. of the Commission, there is anything that will lessen the burden on Parish Councils and Parish Councillors and make our life at the sharp end easier.  It always seems that when such bodies as this Commission  are set up, all they can ever do is ADD to the bureaucratic burden, with ideas that have not even been run-by the very people they will affect.

 

Finally, if you would like a suggestion of one thing that I feel the government could do that would help enormously, particularly the small Parish Councils, it would be to provide something along the lines of a ‘pool’ of fully qualified, Parish Clerks at a central location in each area, paid for by either the government itself or one of the higher tier councils, who would go around to their local Parishes and officiate at Parish Council Meetings.  Not only would this remove the struggle that many Parish’s have to get and retain Parish Clerks of any calibre, but would perhaps provide a central location where documentation could be sent and then distributed by the Clerks, where appropriate.  This could also then save on paper and postage for everyone and should save money on wages, expenses etc,, as the total number of clerks in an area could probably be significantly reduced due to the efficiency savings that I believe would be made.

 

I shall await your further comments with interest.

 

Dear Allan -

Thank you for your further feedback.  As I noted in my last set of comments - we are still in listening mode. We will take this further  feedback into consideration. 

In due course we will be publicising the discussions had during our report launch event.  This will be freely available to download form our web-site or I can send you a copy on DVD format.  This will highlight how other parish councillors and councils have responded to our reports recommendations.  I say this only to highlight the breadth of views which we have been exposed to. All of which I am sure you will agree have their own validity based on operational parish council experience.

I would also seek to highlight that we, the CRC, did not undertake the inquiry in a research vacuum.  There is a good volume of wider research from our partner organisations and our predecessor organisation the Countryside Agency that we have reviewed in addition to the research we undertook.   Please see for example:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/defrasearch/index.jsp?query=Parish+Councils

And

http://www.ruralcommunities.gov.uk/files/overview%20of%20policy%20info%20and%20debate.pdf 

Please stand by for further updates on our web-site.

Warm regards -

 

John Coleman

I was also at the launch event at Westminster London on the 31st January for the Commission for Rural Communities Report “Strengthening the Role of Local Councillors“.

Although I don’t have quite as much parish council experience as councillor Allan Parsons, I as a relative “new boy” with 15 years plus experience as a councillor and 3 years as Chairman,  I agree wholeheartedly with what he had to say.  Yes, we are colleagues and have been for many years, but our experiences of being a rural parish councillor have, to say the least,  not been a smooth ride. We currently cannot get a clerk and I have been doing a “dual role” (unpaid) for 2 years. Try as we might we cant get anybody interested in applying for the clerk’s position.

I too was disappointed at the contents of the Report, as it largely ignored Parish Councils and seemed to focus on the “big boy’s” of Local Government (district and county levels).  This makes it very difficult for the bottom tier of council people like us, to interpret or make suggestions about the Report.  The CRC  was to supposed to look at the lower tiers, such us at Town and Parish Councils, where all of us that are doing the job, do it for our communities and as a rule,  party politics is the last thing on our minds.

It seems the recommendations from the CRC, don’t help the small Parish’s Councillors where it was envisaged it would. As I see it, it adds more of a burden to existing Councillors and  thus will make it more difficult to “fill” vacated posts.  I understand government giving the brief to the  Commission as a way of trying to introduce new ideas into the forum. Indeed these ideas will form the seeds that are likely to germinate into the roots of the requirements of the lower tiers of government, yes this means us at parish council level. This will only load already overworked volunteers with more red tape to wade through. I say again  we do it for our communities not for the glory of being “noted”, as often our parish meetings only have the Councillors present.

The Commission should understand that, the bigger Parish Councils and Town Councils with professional clerks and staff are probably able to deal with all the new bureaucracy reasonably easily,  as they can afford to train and then pay those people for what they contribute to their organisations, as they have large enough precepts to do so. Whereas we, from the smaller parish councils, have to double up on tasks,  although we still  receive roughly the  same volume of material as the larger councils, but we don’t have the time and the skills to properly deal with it..

Whereas medium sized councils can train and retain staff, it is a fact that a large proportion of the budget of smaller parish councils is actually spent on doing just that - not on the provision of community based spending, which is what you and I as council taxpayers would hope that our contributions would actually pay for.

What is really needed is for Parish Councils, with say less than 2,000 inhabitants, to have a reduction of our bureaucratic nightmare or a professional clerk that covers several parishes and then, and only then,  the Parish Councillors might be able to help their community's achieve what they want, rather than deal with unproductive, red tape.

The professional advisory teams that the National Association of Local Councils and the like don’t appear to be there to help Parish Councils achieve their community’s aims, but to primarily relate to us what central government wants them to do in the way of bureaucracy. Even I know of one medium sized parish council in our area that has not renewed their subscription to the local CALC because of  problems that have arisen.

I could not believe the conversation that I was having over lunch at the recent launch,  with one of the CRC Report staff, during which I was telling this member ‘how it is’  in the real world of small Parish Councils. For, as Councillor Parsons has already related, he said  ”that perhaps he ought to make a visit to his own local Parish Council, as he had never actually been to a Parish Council Meeting”. I found that most strange from a person supposedly trying to deliver a report on those very councils. 

I left the launch of the report, angry that I was not able to get up and have my say.  Yes, I appreciate that time was of the essence, with the link up to the Northern group taking up a lot of the time allocated. 

 

If the commission really wants to know how the people at grass root level feel about small parish councils, please log on to the No10 Downing Street website and look at the names from all over the country of local councillors and clerks who have added their support to the e-Petition asking the Prime Minister to ‘Save Parish Councils’,  particularly bearing in mind that this will only be from the small group that have actually found the site!

Dear Alan

Firstly, thank you for your comments.

Just to clarify - our remit was not to solely look at parish councils.  Our brief extended to all tiers.  Despite this, having checked the report again, I can find over 200 references to parish and town councils.   Moreover - I do not accept that we have not addressed the issues faced by smaller parish councils.  We've made explicit reference to small parishes on seven separate occasions in the report. 

I also do not accept that our recommendations have not sought to help smaller parish councils.  For example, we are arguing that smaller parishes should be able to cluster their collective skills/needs/ambitions for their communities with other parish councils- allowing even the smallest of parishes to punch above their weight.  Under this proposal sharing a parish clerk, for example, would be possible.  Furthermore, we have also argued strongly  for parish and ward liaison officers too.  Our proposal is aiming to help all parishes (regardless of size) to connect more helpfully and directly with local decision-makers.

Finally, I am pleased you're having good success with your petition. As you will know form our report - we are supportive of communities and their councillors being able to influence decision-making  more directly.  I wish you continued success.

best regards

John Coleman 

Dear John,

 

I very disappointed that you either are unable or unwilling to answer the queries I put to you, particularly after I addressed the various points you raised!  Or could it just be that the answers you might have to give, would be too embarrassing to someone or perhaps not tow the official line ?  You have also not commented upon a positive idea that I put forward.

 

So, if you are not willing or allowed to answer my queries, would you please give me the name of someone higher up in your organisation who might be able to do so.  I should also be pleased to know where in the hierarchy of the CRC you are situated, as you have not to date, in the replies you have given to myself and others, given your position or status within the organisation.

 

Finally for now, I would advise you that I have read quite widely on this matter and looked at a lot of the so-called ‘Research’, which as I have already noted, seems to have a bias towards the higher tiers of local government,  rather than the Parish level or involves asking NALC or local CALC’s, who the Commission seem to believe represent the views of Parish Councils, but which Parish Councils themselves generally have no faith in,  as they rarely ask our opinion, but just appear to represent themselves or the official government view.

 

p.s. My Petition seems to be gaining more signatories by the day and is now up to 385 – I have also received quite a lot of emails on the subject and it is clear that there are very many Parish Councillors and Parish Clerks out there who are very upset about the amounts of bureaucracy currently being forced on them and concerned about their ability to deal with it !

Regards

Allan Parsons