News: Parish Council debates thirteen "Officer Recommendations"

Last night’s Parish Council meeting was dominated by thirteen recommendations from Locum Clerk, Tom Brindley. The topics ranged from shutting down Community Development Committee meetings to buying new accounting software, including an “Allotment module”,

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With only four Councillors present, it became an unequal battle. On one side, Cllr Debbie Collis objected to the increased expenditure incurred and the time being billed by the Locum Clerk. On the other side, Cllrs Julian Hudson, Tony Ewer and Sue Larcombe proposed and seconded the recommendations, then voted in favour of them.

Officer recommendations

Recommendations that passed were:

  • That CDC terms of reference remain at version 3.2 and its public meetings are suspended until CPC Councillors meet with Test Valley Borough Council
  • That CPC respond to Hampshire County Council and TVBC’s consultations on Local Government Reorganisation
  • That CPC set up a Staffing sub-committee
  • That a debit card should be issued to the Locum Clerk
  • That a deposit account be opened with Metro Bank
  • To take out a subscription to Microsoft 365 Business Standard at an annual cost of £115 per year
  • To engage Eleanor Greene of “Do the Numbers” to audit the council’s processes regarding finance and governance at a cost of £350 plus expenses
  • To purchase a .gov.uk domain
  • To engage Aubergine to host a new Parish Council website
  • To purchase up to 25 email accounts from CloudNext at a cost of £50 per year

Cllr Collis persuaded CPC not to agree to:

  • The purchase of a new laptop, monitor and printer for the Locum Clerk at an estimate cost of £800
  • Subscribe to Scribe accounts, which would cost £559 to set up and £44 every month.

Both these items would await the appointment of a permanent Clerk.

Time billed by the Locum Clerk

The issue that came up time and again was the scope of the Locum Clerk’s role. Cllr Collis said that her understanding was that Tom Brindley had been hired to “keep things ticking over” until the new permanent Clerk was in post.

She questioned why he had spent time producing a “Clerk’s report” for the Council meeting. He replied saying that it had taken him an hour to produce, and that he had done it in the interests of “transparency”.

She noted though that he had billed 73 hours for the month of September, where she had expected he would only be required for 10 hours a week. A normal Parish Clerk would cost the Council £600, but his fee for September was £2,700 including VAT. She said that this was not sustainable and that Mr Brindley’s hours should be capped at no more than 10 hours per week.

Mr Brindley said that when he was engaged by the Parish Council that it was not simply to keep things “ticking over”. His role was to improve the Council’s systems and processes to ensure they were “up to spec” to hand over to a permanent Clerk.

He added that during September his hours had increased because he had to cover the Extraordinary Parish Council meeting. He warned that “If my invoice isn’t paid, I’ll stop working”.

Cllr Hudson said “going forward we should be very careful”. The Parish Council approved the payment of Mr Brindley’s invoice.

Correspondence

Cllr Collis also raised the missing agenda item “Correspondence”, which would normally include emails and letters from the public to the Clerk and councillors. She said that she knew that emails had been sent by residents, but she had not received any of them. She believed that the Locum Clerk had “filtered” the emails.

Waving a sheaf of papers, Mr Brindley said “I have nineteen pages of emails that have come in. [The General Data Protection Regulation] prevents me from revealing those from the public”. He also said that doing otherwise would have taken many hours of his time.

Cllr Collis concluded that in future if residents wanted to communicate with Councillors, they should email all Councillors directly rather than through the Clerk.

Questions from the public

Early in the meeting the Chair, Cllr Julian Hudson, adjourned it to allow for questions from the public, albeit strictly limited to ten minutes.

He explained that the Locum Clerk had apologized to Parish Councillors - the agenda he had published on the Council’s website had omitted the agenda item for public participation.

The floor was opened to questions, with answers to be given later, at the end of the meeting.

A resident asked how the Parish Council was going to regain trust and garner public support for the proposed housing development and the supporting infrastructure.

A second resident asked how the Council intended to engage with the public. He had sent some emails to the Clerk. Normally he would expect to receive an acknowledgement.

A third resident said he was pleased to hear that the Chair would allow Questions and Correspondence in the meeting.

These three questions were noted.

Cllr Tony Ewer’s declarations of interest

A resident asked whether Cllr Tony Ewer was aware of advice from Test Valley Borough Council’s Monitoring Officer, Karen Dunn about his declarations of interest in downsize and self-build homes. He quoted from her:

In my view, these circumstances are such that, in context, the interest is not insignificant and is of the type that a reasonable member of the public would be likely to call into question the public interest. I have advised Mr Ewer of this and that my advice and recommendation is that he should not take part in items of business relating to this interest.

Cllr Ewer said “I don’t agree with her. I am a lawyer”.

Cllr Collis asked “You are going to reply to her?”

Cllr Ewer replied “I don’t agree with her. It’s a private matter. She may be liable under the matter of privacy”.

The resident said “I asked [the Monitoring Officer] whether I should raise this matter. If he denies he has received the letter, it is provable”.

At this point, time for public questions was up and Cllr Hudson resumed the meeting.

Answers to questions

Over an hour and a half after the questions had been asked, and with half the members of the public now departed, Cllr Hudson responded. He confirmed that the Parish Council would have public questions at its meetings in future. That they were missing this month “was a mistake”.

On the issue of regaining public trust, he said “I don’t have an immediate answer to that”.

Summary

The meeting was about challenging the remit of the Locum Clerk, Tom Brindley. Cllr Collis repeatedly questioned how he was spending his time, and whether he had extended his objectives beyond what CPC needs. It was a one-woman battle against a Council room that was ranged against her, and she won the admiration of the members of the public who were there.

The value of public participation was once again proved, despite the confined and limiting way in which it was structured. At last villagers heard the Monitoring Officer’s view on Cllr Ewer’s declarations of interest, and what she believes it means for his participation in meetings.

Overall though, despite a punishing two and three quarters of an hour, there was abundant evidence that Chilbolton Parish Council would benefit from some new blood, and with the same attitude of enquiry as Cllr Collis.