11 December 2021
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On Monday 6 December, Cllr Nicholls, the Chairman of Hughenden Parish Council, informed councillors that the Clerk had resigned.
On Friday 10 December, I sent the following e-mail to Cllr Peter Gieler, the Vice Chairman of Hughenden Parish Council, copied to all councillors.
I hope this explains something of what is happening at Hughenden Parish Council.
For those who want more, I have set out the background. I leave it to you to come to your own conclusions.
“Dear Peter
Just to be clear.
The Clerk and deputy Clerk are both absent.
In the absence of the Chair, you, as Vice Chair, have decided to move the Full Council meeting on Tuesday to 3pm in the Council carpark. I wonder if you could confirm which councillors can attend and whether the meeting has a quorum. I would also be grateful if you could say who will be taking the minutes.
You have also cancelled the meeting of the Finance and Policy meeting on Monday, despite the fact that we have the papers and an agenda and a quorum. I would be grateful to know on what authority you have cancelled that meeting. I have not seen anything from Simon, the chairman of F&P, about the meeting yet. I think the decision lies with him.
I also believe the Clerk cancelled the meeting of the Planning Committee meeting on 20 December before she went on leave.
So apart from the very short agenda for Full Council it looks as though HPC is totally closed down until after Christmas.
But perhaps I am wrong.
Perhaps someone is arranging meetings of the Staffing Committee to discuss our staffing problems. You will know that I have already asked the Clerk for the agenda and papers for these as nothing is on the HPC's website nor Widmer End notice boards and notice of these meeting do need to be issued to be lawful. Or perhaps informal meetings are planned. If so, I would like to attend these too.
Perhaps further Emergency meetings of the Services Committee are going to be held to discuss confidential issues? Notices for these also need to be issued. And I would remind you that only the Council, the Clerk and the Clerk/Chairman can authorise expenditure. If further Emergency meetings are to be held, I would like the agenda and papers for these too. I suspect members of the public would as well.
It is of course not just meetings. It is the on-going work of HPC in managing the contractors, making payments and responding to residents, including emergencies. How is the council going to cope?
We need to tell residents what is happening. Many already know that the Clerk has resigned. They need to know who to contact and how HPC intends to manage the situation.
I am not sure that a meeting on Tuesday in the carpark in the middle of December is the answer. We need to have some thought and plans in advance of that meeting. I am happy to join fellow councillors in any formal or informal meeting to do that.
My preference would be to use the F&P meeting on Monday in the parish council as an opportunity to do so. It would be a start.
It would be helpful to have a response from all councillors today on what they propose in order to cope with the situation.
Linda
Councillor for Widmer End
Hughenden Parish Council”
THE BACKGROUND
On 6 December, Cllr Nicholls, the Chairman of Hughenden Parish Council, wrote to councillors to tell them the Clerk had resigned. I was then away for a couple of days. When I got back I thought councillors would have a copy of the Clerk’s resignation letter and would be starting to consider how to manage the resignation, given that the deputy Clerk is absent.
To my surprise, there was nothing on my return – no resignation letter and no e-mails from fellow councillors about managing the staffing situation.
So in the morning of 9 December, I wrote first to the Clerk giving her my best wishes for the future, whatever that might be.
Then I wrote to the Cllr Nicholls, copied to all councillors, saying that, as the Clerk of a parish council is employed by the Council I would be grateful if the Clerk's letter of resignation could be circulated to councillors as soon as possible. As a matter of urgency, we need to know when the Clerk’s period of notice came to an end.
I suggested we needed to take urgent action, not least because the deputy Clerk was on sick leave. For example, Council needed to inform the public that the Clerk had resigned; it needed to decide how and when to advertise for a new Clerk and how to manage the recruitment process. Council needed to decide how it would cope if the Clerk left before we could recruit a new Clerk. And, as I have been advocating for a long time, Council needed to decide how to reduce its work.
I also asked how the Plan B COVID restrictions would affect HPC.
I asked if we could have an informal (but open) meeting to talk some of these issues through.
I received an automatic response from Cllr Nicholls saying “ I am travelling until 21st Dec with limited access to my email so will respond as soon as possible on my return.”
Half an hour later, the Clerk circulated her proposals for managing HPC meetings up to Christmas. She proposed cancelling the Finance and Policy Committee on 13 December and the Planning Committee on 20th December and moving the Full Council meeting on 14 December to the afternoon and possibly outside. She asked councillors to confirm by mid-day that they could attend Full Council.
Cllr Gieler confirmed he was happy with the arrangements but I saw nothing from other councillors.
I e-mailed back to ask whether the meetings would be quorate - and it was therefore a choice for Council to postpone or cancel meetings - or whether the meetings would be inquorate anyway.
I repeated what I have been saying for months – that the first item on Council's agenda should be to agree Council's priorities and draw up a plan to deliver.
I suggested that Council obviously needed to decide what actions to take in the light of the Clerk’s resignation.
And finally, I repeated the need for Council to be updated in writing on what is happening with the proposed transfer of land - the biggest financial transaction facing the Council in many years.
The Clerk e-mailed back to say “My recommendations stand. Staffing Committee are already busy on the matter of my resignation. My resignation period is three months.”
Well, I was surprised that the Staffing Committee was busy on the Clerk’s resignation as I was not aware that it had met. I was also surprised that the Clerk’s resignation period was three months as I thought the Clerk’s contract specified a month.
I had also had time to read the agenda and the some of the papers for the F&P Committee for 13 December which the Clerk now proposed to cancel. I was concerned about a number of issues and asked for some information. (I will blog about this separately).
The Clerk then told me that the Services Committee had had an Emergency meeting on 1 December and had already decided that I could not have the information I requested. I knew nothing about this meeting.
By this time – mid morning – it felt like Alice in Wonderland again. A resignation letter which, as a member of Council, I was not allowed to see; discussions by a Committee which hadn’t met and a refusal of information by an Emergency meeting no-one knew about.
So I e-mailed the Clerk to ask about the Emergency meeting and the meetings of the Staffing Committee, asking if I could have the papers for the latter as I would like to attend.
I also pointed out that Council had not received the Clerk’s resignation letter and had not accepted her period of notice.
I then e-mailed the officers of Widmer End Residents’ Association to let them know that the Clerk had resigned. I said I had no more information but would let them know more when I did.
I then had a copy of an e-mail from the Clerk to Cllr Kearey which suggested that he would still like to go ahead with the F&P Committee. The Clerk asked members if they could attend. I said I was happy to do so.
I then had a response from the Clerk about the Emergency meeting of the Services Committee and the Staffing Committee meetings. Apparently the notice of the Emergency meeting was posted on the door of the Council offices and a notice board (presumably the one at the Council office), and the meeting only took confidential items.
I wasn’t sent any papers for the Staffing Committee meetings but was told I was welcome to attend any committee meeting although if it went into confidential session I would be treated as a member of the public and perhaps asked to leave.
The Clerk added that “her resignation notice was forwarded to the Chairman of the Council and the Chairman of the Staffing Committee. It was not for public viewing or speculation, furthermore it is not for you to accept my notice. Please apologise to others you have written too, you will not have further information to share with them.”
Have you ever read the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Universe? The bit where the plans for the destruction of the Earth to make way for a hyperspace express route were on display at the local planning department in Alpha Centauri four light years away?
Well it felt a bit like that.
I responded to say that, even if the Emergency meeting only consisted of confidential items (and this meant no public participation), the existence of the meeting was not confidential and notices should be issued. I could not find the meeting of 1 December on the meetings calendar on HPC’s website and it was not on my local notice board.
As far as the Staffing Committee was concerned, I said it was for me to decide whether to attend and for the Chairman to ask me to leave if he wished. I could not see any recent or future meetings of the Staffing Committee on the website or on my local notice board. I asked again for the agenda and papers.
I also pointed out that I had not suggested that it was for me to accept the Clerk’s resignation. I had said that was for Council to do. And Council has not received the Clerk’s resignation letter.
Moreover, the e-mail from Cllr Nicholls telling councillors that the Clerk had resigned had no confidential classification. That was the information I have provided to officers of my residents’ association.
Are you still with me? Because at this point – mid-afternoon of 9 December - the agenda and papers for the Full Council meeting on 14 December were issued. This is the only meeting the Clerk proposed HPC should have until January - and there was virtually nothing on the very short agenda.
Council was merely asked to “note that the resignation of the Clerk has been received”. The only item of any substance was a recommendation from the Services Committee to continue to carry out services for Bucks Council under a contract – a contract which in present circumstances I thought HPC was singularly ill–equipped to manage.
Cllr Gieler then informed councillors that the Clerk was unavailable. He said the office was closed and telephone calls and emails would remain unanswered.
I continued e-mailing as I thought councillors needed to discuss the Council’s problems. But Cllr Gieler e-mailed to me that evening to say that the decisions had been taken.
That’s when I sent the e-mail at the beginning of this blog.
I have had one reply – a telephone call from Cllr Kearey, who is Chairman of the Finance and Policy Committee and the Staffing Committee.
He wanted to know if I could make the F&P Committee meeting on Monday evening as he would still like it to take place. I said I could. I asked him for the papers for the Staffing Committee meeting on Monday afternoon which I said I would like to attend, and for a copy of the Clerk’s resignation letter. He said he would consider my requests.
That’s what it was like at HPC this week – a great deal of effort to get, perhaps, what should be provided as a matter of routine.