8 January 2022
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After so many cancelled inquorate meetings, suddenly, within a week, Hughenden Parish Council has two Finance and Policy Committee meetings and a Full Council meeting.
And what a Full Council meeting! On 11 January, Council has an agenda with 46 substantive items and 37 appendices. Oh, what fun it is going to be.
It’s not as though these are trivial items. Many involve substantial sums of money, some are about the culture of the Council and some are controversial. You might like to look for yourself at 2022-01-11-Agenda-Full-Council.pdf (hughenden-pc.gov.uk).
I know – it’s just ridiculous thinking that the Council can give serious consideration to the important issues it faces with an agenda like this. It is just set up to be a rubber-stamping exercise.
So, let’s look at it the other way around. Here’s seven items I think should be on the agenda.
If Council made decisions on these items it might make some progress and be seen as a serious organisation. But an agenda like next Tuesday’s just looks like a joke.
1. Delivery of work (the sort that benefits the community)
In view of HPC’s poor performance in delivering its objectives (see my last blog), the agenda should start with real work i.e. work to improve facilities and services to the community like playgrounds, allotments, bus shelters and amenity open spaces.
As far as I could see, there is only one such item on the agenda – item 7.6 which is a recommendation from the Services Committee to replace a bus shelter destroyed in 2020. The shelter would cost about £8000. I’m afraid I don’t know where the shelter was or anything about the new shelter. There is a reference number (21-3-61) for the recommendation but I don’t know what that means.
What the Council should consider is why its performance on delivering services is so poor – and then decide what it should do to improve its performance.
2. Filling the 8 vacant seats on the Council.
The Council has 7 councillors and there should be 15. There have been 2 resignations since the elections and no-one has applied for co-option. Meetings have been inquorate, little substantive work has been done and the Council itself is at risk of becoming inquorate and Bucks Council having to step in.
So you would think that anyone applying for co-option would be welcomed with open arms.
Two residents applied last week. Jill Armshaw, who lives in Hughenden Valley, applied on 4 January and Debra Main, who lives in Great Kingshill, on 5 January. Both applications were valid and arrived in time to go on the Full Council meeting agenda next week. The Council could have had two more councillors next week.
And what happened? Well, the Clerk wrote to Hughenden Valley Residents Association on 5 January inviting them to encourage residents to apply for co-option. She set a deadline of 29 January, saying any applications would be put on the February agenda.
She has not put Mrs Armshaw’s or Mrs Main’s applications on the January agenda.
As HPC is desperate for councillors, you have to ask why. I’m the only woman on the Council, and that is not good in so many ways.
What Council should consider is why so few residents want to be councillors and what it could do to attract them.
3. Staffing
The current Clerk has resigned and will leave at the end of February. HPC gets a poor response when it advertises its staff posts.
So, next week Council should discuss and approve the arrangements for recruiting the Clerk’s replacement, including the job advertisement. It should approve any transitional arrangements.
But no. All Council is asked to do on Tuesday is “note the resignation of the Clerk”.
All the recruitment arrangements were discussed at the Staffing Committee on 5 January in confidential session. The Staffing Committee presumably thinks Council does not need to know what those arrangements are or approve them.
I am not a member of the Staffing Committee but, as the only woman on the Council, I offered to help, including attending the Staffing Committee and being on the recruitment panel. I received no invitation to do either. I was told I could only attend the Staffing Committee as a member of the public and, as the meeting arrangements were discussed in private, I would have to leave the meeting unless the Chairman allowed me to stay. As I had no assurance I could stay, I didn’t go.
What the Council should consider is why it is so unattractive to potential applicants and how it could change this.
4. The precept
The Council has to set HPC’s precept – or the parish tax – in January. Next Tuesday, Council should base the precept on a draft three-year budget which should have been produced by the end of November. Council should also be informed by regular, up-dated information on income and expenditure and about the delivery of planned work.
Council should be able to see how much it intends to spend, on what, and when – and whether this is realistic based on past performance. Then it can set the precept to cover its planned spend.
Well, Council will not get a draft three-year budget and will only get a draft budget for 2022/3 on the day of the Council meeting (if it is lucky). As of close of play on 7 January, Council has no up-to date information on its current financial position and no information about the delivery of planned work.
Curiously, the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting does not appear to ask Council to set a precept.
Confused? Me too.
What the Council should consider is why it is not presented with full information, well in time, for it to take well informed decisions on taxing its residents.
Residents might consider this too.
5. Proposed transfer of allotments
I have blogged about this transfer on a number of occasions. Council intends to transfer four allotments and land at Common Road to a charity called Hughenden Community Support Trust (HCST) for free. This is HPC’s largest financial transaction for st least a decade.
HCST applied to the Land Registry in April to transfer the titles to this land from HPC to itself. Since then, there have been important developments – not least that a number of residents, including myself, have formally objected to the Registry about the transfers.
I think it might be appropriate to state here that the only interest I have in making my objection is the interest of the residents and taxpayers I represent as a councillor.
The objections have all been assessed as eligible.
During this process, the objectors were given the opportunity to ask HCST for an explanation for their application. HCST did not respond.
The objectors all opted to negotiate with HCST rather than going to the Land Registry’s Tribunal. However, HCST opted to go to the Tribunal. So the Tribunal will decide who owns the land.
None of this has been reported to Council nor has Council received any legal advice on the issues. There is no report on the transfer on next week’s agenda. Council should be getting briefing on what is happening on this transfer and, if necessary, legal advice.
Council should also be considering why it has paid HCST’s legal fees for something like seven years amounting to what must be tens of thousands of pounds. The internal auditor described these payments last week as “a matter of concern”. He has recommended HPC determine under what legal power it paid HCST’s legal fees and, then if HPC had the powers, to treat payment as a grant.
Council should also be endorsing a recommendation agreed by the F&P Committee on 5 January that Council investigate whether it properly authorised payment of legal fees to BP Collins, HPC’s own solicitors. The outcome of that investigation should be put to the February Full Council.
Amazingly, what Council is asked to consider instead is a payment of over £26,000 to HCST for “rent” going back to 2015.
Council is asked to consider paying the rent in advance of the decision by the Tribunal and without any explanation as to why it should pay any back rent at all. The Clerk has apparently taken legal advice on the matter but has not made it available to Council. You have to ask why?
If the tribunal decides in favour of the objectors, then HPC is unlikely to get the money back – and taxpayers’ money will have been paid out by HPC to rent its own land.
Paying tens of thousands of pounds of legal fees to HCST’s solicitor is a matter of concern to the internal auditor. And now Council is asked to consider paying another £26,000 to HCST before the Tribunal has decided ownership. You have to ask why?
Council should get a grip on this transfer and ensure it is spending taxpayers’ money lawfully and in the interests of its residents.
6. Recommendations from the Internal Auditors Report
The auditor made 18 recommendations at the beginning of November to the Council. Many of the recommendations need careful investigation and considered decisions by Council.
Council is being asked to take decisions on all the recommendations on Tuesday along with all the other agenda items. I have already flagged up that one of the resolutions to Council does not comply with HPC’s Financial Regulations. I have not got round to the others. I simply won’t have the time. Nor will Council have time to consider on Tuesday.
What Council should get is a plan prioritising the recommendations and proposing how Council can make decisions on the recommendations rigorously and with the seriousness they deserve.
7. Freedom of Information Requests
For some weeks, anyone e-mailing the Clerk would have got an automatic response which said “Officers are currently working solely on Freedom of Information requests of which we have received an unprecedented number and which have statutory response times. We will respond to your request as soon as we can”.
It is a serious matter if one area of work increases to the extent that it is completely taking over the time of officers. I and another councillor have made proposals to improve matters but they have been ignored.
Instead, on Tuesday, Council is asked to delegate authority to the Clerk so that she can handle complaints about how she has handled requests for information. Surely that’s known as marking your own homework?
Council should get to the bottom of this problem and sort it out.