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21 January 2024
This is a report of the Full Council meeting of Hughenden Parish Council on Tuesday 16 January 2024. This is the first installment.
Often, I put the main points at the beginning and leave the details to the end for you to read if you wish.
However, this meeting was so divorced from reality that I really didn't know where to start. And, if you want to see how incomprehensible the whole thing is, you will have to stay with me to the end of this blog.
Let’s go straight to Item 10 – approval of the dates of meetings for Council and its Committees
For years (perhaps decades), HPC’s Full Council meetings have been held monthly. HPC has had four Committees – Finance, Planning, HR, and Environment and Services. All the Committees have also met monthly, apart from the Planning Committee which met every three weeks to fit in with the planning deadlines.
Over this long period, the Council has generally had two officers, a Clerk and a Deputy Clerk, sometimes part-time, and sometimes with a warden, also part-time. The meetings have invariably been managed by one officer, including taking the minutes and advising Council.
In July 2023, the then Clerk proposed that Council and its Committees meet every two months and Council agreed. Council also agreed not to have a Planning Committee (which means HPC has not been fulfilling its responsibilities as a statutory consultee on planning applications).
The reason the then Clerk proposed halving the number of meetings was because the office could not cope with the work. It was intended to be a temporary measure until the office was up to strength. Council agreed that a locum Clerk should attend Council meetings in support for the next few months. The then Clerk resigned in September 2023.
At the meeting on 16 January 2024, Mr Truppin, HPC’s current locum Clerk, proposed that Council and three of its Committees – Finance, HR, and Environment and Services – should continue to meet every two months up to the local elections in May 2025. And that there should continue to be no Planning Committee up to May 2025.
There was no explanation for any of these proposals nor any discussion.
Council approved the dates, with me voting against and Cllr Kearey abstaining.
I can only assume that Mr Truppin proposed continuing the reduced scheduling of meetings because the office still did not have the resources to support more frequent meetings (or a Planning Committee).
I noted that the January meeting was supported by the attendance of two locum Clerks and a minute taker so the meeting must have put pressure on Council resources.
Or perhaps Mr Truppin had made the proposals because councillors had indicated they could not attend meetings more frequently?
I can only assume the Mr Truppin believed the office and/or councillors could not cope with monthly meetings for the next 16 months to the elections.
I can only assume that the 6 councillors who approved these dates think the same.
I voted against because I think Council needs more (and shorter) meetings to get through even the basic work, specifically the work to enable Council to make its statutory Annual Governance and Accountability Return without major problems.
Meetings are already overloaded and lasting well into the evening (past 10 pm last Tuesday). This means that important decisions involving thousands of pounds are not discussed and considered thoroughly and some important issues are not discussed at all.
Now let’s go to Item 6.1 - the budget report and balance sheet.
I explained HPC’s current financial position in detail in my previous blog of 13 January 2024.
In short, Council had budgeted to be in deficit by £27,467 by the end of the third financial quarter i.e. 31 December 2023. Instead, it had a surplus of £146,345. So, Council had more than it budgeted for i.e. an underspend of £173,812.
Council was not given a forecast for the outturn at the end of the year but it is clear that HPC is going to underspend; there is no way it is going to spend the £173,812 already underspent and the additional £49,354 budgeted to be spent in the last three months of the year.
Council will underspend on the basic work of the Council and in delivering its projects.
Council has underspent for at least the last five years in this way.
Council will need to account for this, again, to the external auditors and taxpayers.
And so to Item 6.6 - the precept for 2024/5
I described in my previous blog of 13 January 2023, the two alternative strategies facing the Council.
One strategy was to set a zero precept and for Council to deliver the basics.
The other strategy was to deliver the basics and some major new projects by contracting out work to consultants. This strategy required Council to maintain the current precept.
I proposed a motion for a zero precept, which was seconded by Cllr Wilding. No-one else voted for the motion and it was defeated by 6 votes to 2.
Two other councillors proposed and seconded a motion to maintain the precept at £219,000 (and I can't remember who they were) and this motion was approved by 6 votes to 2, with me and Cllr Wilding voting against.
N.B I amended the above two paragraphs on 23 January to make the voting absolutely clear, on the suggestion of another parish councillor.
Putting Items 10, 6.1 and 6.6 together,
Here's the thing. How is it that:-
a) Council does not even have the resources to support regular monthly meetings and a Planning Committee;
b) that it will underspend and not deliver yet again in 2023/4;
c) and yet, somehow, next year will be different?
That next year, Council will, as the Chair says, “break the stagnation of the past few years”?
Go figure!
