24 January 2022
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There are 7 councillors on Hughenden Parish Council. I am the only woman. I am not on HPC’s Staffing Committee - it consists of 5 councillors, all of them men.
So, when the Clerk resigned at the beginning of December and Council had to recruit another Clerk, I offered to help, including being on the interviewing panel. I have experience of recruitment and management (albeit dated) and, I thought, at least the entire process would not be decided by a small group of men.
Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that my offers of help are not wanted and I have been deliberately excluded from all meaningful decision-making on the recruitment process.
As the only woman on the Council, I just wonder if any of my fellow councillors could be just a bit chauvinistic? Or even sexist? Surely not.
Instead of being involved in the decision-making, I will be asked, at an Extraordinary Council meeting tomorrow, to rubber stamp consequential expenditure without being informed of how much that expenditure is.
I can only repeat what I have already said to fellow councillors. This process has been managed in an insular and secretive way by a small number of men - and managed in a way which is unlikely to lead to a fair and transparent competition for the post of Clerk for Hughenden Parish Council.
Here’s the sequence of events.
5 January
I offered to go to a Staffing Committee on 5 January and contribute to the discussions about the recruitment. However, I was told I could only attend as a member of the public and the meetings were confidential. That meant I would be excluded from all the discussions. The Chairman of the Committee, Cllr Kearey, could have invited me to attend the whole of the Staffing Committee but didn’t do so.
Cllr Kearey did invite me to comment on the draft job advert for the Clerk before the meeting. I did but I was never told whether my comments were taken on board nor was I sent a copy of the final advert.
Last week
I was told the vacancy would be advertised on the website of the Milton Keynes and Bucks Association for Local Councils which I understand is the place to go for experienced Clerks seeking jobs. However, when I checked last week, there was no job advert on MKBALC’s website.
I alerted Cllr Kearey to this but got no response.
I also alerted Cllr Kearey to the fact that the vacancy was only briefly mentioned on HPC’s website in a low-key way. I received no response.
The job advert was posted on the MKBALV website on 19 January. That was the first time I was able to see it. I noticed my comments had not been taken on board. I found out from the advert that the closing date for applications was 29 January so candidates have, at best, only 9 working days to respond.
I also saw that interviews for the vacancy will be held in the week commencing 7 Feb. As I had heard nothing about being on the interviewing panel and no-one had checked my availability for that week, I had to assume that my offer to be on the panel had been declined.
The same day, the Clerk circulated the agenda for another meeting of the Staffing Committee, this time on 24 January. Again, I could only attend as a member of the public and the agenda would be in confidential session. Again, I was not invited to attend for this confidential session.
Cllr Kearey asked me if I had any thoughts on the “handover process and checklist”.
I have repeatedly asked for Council to be informed about, and approve, the recruitment and handover arrangements. Nothing has been put to Council nor circulated to councillors. So I had no idea what the “handover process and checklist” was.
By now I was getting more than a slight suspicion that my help was not wanted. Could it be possible that other councillors didn’t want me to know what was going on, let alone want me to help?
Correspondence with Cllr Kearey
So, I wrote to Cllr Kearey with my concerns. I asked him how I could comment when I had nothing to comment on and that I couldn’t provide helpful thoughts when I was kept in the dark.
I asked him why I should offer my thoughts at all when previous thoughts and offers of help have been ignored, when he declined to invite me to the meetings where the process was being discussed; and I was being excluded from the process, both as an individual councillor and as a member of the Council.
I asked him how the Council could justify excluding the only woman on the Council in any meaningful involvement in the recruitment of a new Clerk?
Cllr Kearey replied the same day but did not explain why Council had not been consulted or even informed in January about the recruitment and handover arrangements nor why all councillors had not been kept informed by correspondence.
Nor did he explain why I could not be invited to a Staffing Committee meeting. He merely said "because of the personal nature of the staffing committee items others cannot really be involved in the meetings".
So I wrote to Cllr Kearey again. I said it was perfectly reasonable and proper for the Chairman of a Committee to invite a councillor, who was not a member of that Committee, to join the Committee, even when the discussion was confidential.
The clear inference I took was that the Committee simply didn’t want me to be involved; I had no idea why.
I suggested to Cllr Kearey that perhaps members of the Committee didn’t think I was competent to help. So, I briefly mentioned some of my previous experience which I hoped would dispel their doubts.
Or perhaps I suggested the members of the Committee didn’t think I could be trusted with items of a "personal nature". So, I briefly mentioned some of my previous experience which I hoped would dispel these doubts.
The only other suggestion I had was that the members of the Staffing Committee were simply chauvinistic and sexist.
Cllr Kearey responded the same day. He said the Staffing Committee hadn’t discussed and agreed the recruitment and handover arrangements yet (even though it met on 5 January and the advertisement is out and deadlines set). And I could not attend Staffing Committee meetings because “the Committee is the Committee”.
20 January
On 20 January, the Clerk circulated the agenda of an Extraordinary meeting of the Full Council for tomorrow. Two of the items on the agenda are:-
- “To … note the Checklist of Handover Actions in the transfer of responsibilities from the current Clerk … to the Acting Clerk - Appendix 3
- To resolve the Appointment of the Deputy Clerk to Acting Clerk … with appropriate uplift in salary for the duration of this appointment.”
Last night I wrote to Cllr Nicholls, the Chairman of the Council, as he is the only person who could have convened this Extraordinary meeting.
There are lots of other things which concern me about this Extraordinary meeting – not least that I have no idea whether this meeting, convened with no warning, will be quorate.
However, as far as the recruitment and handover arrangements are concerned, here’s the position: -
- I have been excluded from all discussions and have received virtually no information on what has been decided;
- I am again excluded from the Staffing Committee meeting today;
- If the Extraordinary Council meeting goes ahead tomorrow night, then I will be asked merely to note some information which I may receive sometime tomorrow;
- Council will also be asked to approve the appointment of the deputy Clerk as Acting Clerk. I have no information about the duration of this appointment or about the “uplift” even as staff-in-confidence. I do not approve expenditure unless I know how much I am approving. I also think Council and the deputy Clerk needs to know exactly what Council is approving.
- As the Clerk’s contract doesn’t end until 28 February, there is no legal necessity to take these decisions yet. It would be better to wait until Full Council on 8 February when Council can be provided with the supporting information and take well- informed decisions.
Well, that’s what is happening. You can decide for yourself why the Council is being run this way.