Parish Council Autonomy

I have been a Parish Councillor for 25 years, years that have been enjoyable and satisfying. Enjoyable for the most part because they have been pleasant assemblies where like-minded people have combined their talents and abilities to a collective purpose, and satisfying because of the many happy outcomes that have accrued.

From the relatively larger scale of dredging Blakeney New-Cut and acquiring the Pastures while on Blakeney Parish Council to a working Village Design Statement and smaller but nevertheless very satisfying 2005 Environment Award that Wiveton Parish Council have just won; all achieved at meetings conducted in a relaxed atmosphere steered by common sense with ordinary rational people working together.

However, in recent times Parish Clerks guided by NALC, SLCC, NCAPTC etc, have been led to believe that Parish Councils are unable to operate fairly and honestly by themselves and therefore they must become the principle managers of Parish affairs – equivalent to a chief executive – as it was put to our clerk, and are sent back to us from conferences armed with ever more complex, bureaucratic and prescriptive guidelines. They are not however, presented to us, or perhaps even to them as guidelines, but as legal rules, rules which if we were to believe it [which of course we don’t] are as the tablets brought down by Moses. Not surprising then that the clerk to Wells Town Council felt able to call meetings behind her chairman’s back and when challenged by the EDP about it said” I do not have to have anyone’s permission to call meetings”, talk about having the cart before the horse.

These guidelines and instructions seem to be based on an assumption that Parish Councillors are either dishonest and self-serving or just plain stupid, or if it’s possible, both. This is a very blurred and remote perception of how Parish Councils operate and is an affront to intelligent people who are in the main public-spirited, care deeply for their community and want to make it better. All the councillors I have served with have been like this.

Apart from being very insulting these ever more tightly drawn and prescriptive guidelines for council procedure and councillor’s behaviour are counter productive, restricting rather than enabling councillors to achieve good results.

Blakeney Parish Council adhere very strictly to all the new guidelines, sticking to them as if their very liberty would be at stake if they did not and as a result have become totally neutered, their ‘Standing Orders’ are so restrictive that very little real discussion is possible and consequently very little gets done. I will offer an example, although it must be hypothetical.

Let’s say that because of a spate of criminal damage around the village ‘Vandalism’ is an item on the agenda for a forthcoming meeting. On the afternoon of the meeting a passing policeman notices this on the PC notice board and decides that perhaps he ought to attend and offer some advice and perhaps inform the council of what measures the police have taken.

However, when the item ‘Vandalism ‘is reached and our conscientious policemen gets ready to speak he would be very quickly told that he cannot and that for him to be able to speak he would have had to have given clear notice to the clerk in writing at least a week in advance of the meeting indicting not just that he wished to speak but also indicating what it was he intended to say; as if he could possibly know what he might want say a week in advance! Here in Wiveton he would be invited to speak, not just to give the police position but also to comment on what he had heard at the meeting.

Wiveton Parish Council’s meetings are very relaxed and informal, allowing us to cover the ground very easily and more importantly if that ground is a bit rough, those bumps that might otherwise stop us or throw us off course are softened by the humour and goodwill this way of working engenders. As a result we feel we are a council that effectively executes the wishes of the parishioners who have elected us to act on their behalf.

This is the crux, Parish Councillors are elected, we live in a democracy which functions by enabling those who are elected to serve us and to do so with an effective degree of autonomy. If they fail to do this or abuse the position they hold they will not be re-elected, that’s how it works, that way the electorate gets the councillors or members of Parliament they deserve. We are not elected to dance to a tune composed by unelected third parties, whoever they may be. Those who’s job description is to enlighten us by continually thinking up new ways to waste and frustrate our volunteered time are certainly free to offer guidance and we might well be considered unwise not to listen, but by virtue of the democracy we live in we reserve the right [within the bounds of civil law] to heed or ignore that advice based on our local knowledge, our common sense and the brains that God gave us.

I am not trying to shoot the messenger here; our clerks are dedicated and do a great job and are doing so to the very best of their ability-, which locally is quite considerable-. The problem lies with faceless puppeteers hiding behind acronyms and bureaucracy abusing this dedication to alter the direction of local government toward ideals and political objectives favoured by themselves and central government rather than those chosen by us. This stuff is creeping into every aspect of our lives today and mostly because we let it. As far as this council is concerned we are determined to let it intrude no further.

Godfrey Sayers

Chairman

Wiveton Parish Council.