14 January 2023
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Well, there’s good news and bad news from Hughenden Parish Council.
First, some bad news. Two councillors resigned over the New Year - Neil MacDonald who was co-opted in March and Seb Berry who was co-opted in November. Hughenden Parish Council now has 10 councillors and 5 vacancies.
And some good news. Two benches for the Primrose Hill amenity field have arrived from the supplier and will be shortly installed. You might think this is pretty small beer but you wouldn’t believe how long it has taken to get to this point. A big thank you to our temporary Parish Officer who has sorted this out where others have failed.
If anyone wants to know what is proposed in future for the amenity field and the allotments on Primrose Hill, they might like to see Proposed-Management-Plan-for-Primrose-Hill-allotments-and-amenity-field.pdf (hughenden-pc.gov.uk).
And so, to the meeting of Council on 10 January. There was a mixed bag of items so I have rearranged them in some sort of priority order.
Staffing
I don’t think it will be any surprise if I say that the Council is once again in difficulty with staffing. The item was discussed in a confidential session so all I can say is that Council will be urgently recruiting for two permanent posts – a Clerk and another post similar to a Parish Warden.
Finance
The internal auditor’s report
The Council received an interim report from its internal auditor at the end of November. Council received it the day before last week’s meeting.
Council asked the Finance Committee to consider the report and make recommendations for Council’s February meeting. However, I think it’s worth flagging up some issues – or at least some which the auditor thinks are high priority.
For example, one of the standard questions he asks is “Have payments been approved as required under Council Financial Regulations? “
The answer to this is - only in some cases. Payment of salaries, for example, is still not approved by Council as required by its Financial Regulations.
The internal auditor noted in particular that a payment of £2,000 made in respect of a settlement agreed by Council did not appear on a listing for Council approval. So, Council didn’t approve the payment (which has been made) and, according to the then Clerk, there was no settlement.
The internal auditor recommended “that Council reviews how it formally authorises payments to ensure that ALL amounts to be paid are subject to Council approval.”
Another standard question is “Does the budget recorded in the Council’s accounting system agree to the budget set by Council? The answer is no. Makes it tricky monitoring income and expenditure against the agreed budget.
The auditor also asked whether there was an investment policy in place. The answer seems to be that we don’t have one.
However, I checked after the meeting and Council did approve an Investment Policy at its chaotic meeting on 11 January 2022 (see my blog of 21 January below). However, it was not put on HPC’s website and seems to have vanished. I’ll try and find it.
The auditor also pointed out that Council should have an Investment Strategy as it has more than £100k invested.
In the meantime, the auditor commented that Council has significant bank balances on which it is earning a low rate of interest.
The auditor also commented that “It is understood that the Council has land and property which is leased out. It was not possible during the audit visit to verify that these Lease agreements are current.” He recommended that Council review and update its lease agreements. I have no idea which leases he is referring to.
Finally, there still seem to be problems with the verification of the reconciliation of bank accounts which I thought Council had sorted. But apparently not.
List of payments
This item was at the end of the agenda and I know gets frequently overlooked. So, I checked the list against the invoices. There were two proposed payments which I questioned and for which there seemed to be no paperwork. One of these was £2000 to the Hughenden Community Support Trust for “interest”. I have no idea what interest HPC might owe HCST. The other proposed payment was for about £600 for a job advertisement which no-one knew about. These two payments weren’t approved and won’t get paid.
Streetlights
A number of residents from Widmer End spoke about the importance of the streetlights to the community in Widmer End.
Council then approved two resolutions recommended by the Streetlights Working Group. First, Council agreed to adopt the footway streetlights in the parish, despite some reservations by some councillors. This should give certainty that Hughenden Parish Council owns these streetlights.
Second, Council instructed the Clerk to put quotes to Council as soon as possible for repairs to the streetlights.
I also gave feedback from the second meeting of the Streetlights Working Group. It considered the costs of electricity and repairs to the streetlights. On the face of it, HPC is spending considerably more than other Councils. For example, HPC seems to be spending the same on electricity for the streetlights as Hazlemere Parish Council – which has 6 times as many streetlights as Hughenden. The Working Group is investigating!
Invitation to Tender for (i) Ground Maintenance and (ii) Hedge and Field Maintenance
The Council formally approved these documents (which I think are excellent and congratulations to all who worked on them). There was only one small, tiny glitch – the decimal point had moved so the documents referred to a contract with an estimated value of £250.000 rather than £25.000. That’s being corrected.
Policing
Thames Valley Police are consulting on its review into local policing. One of its proposals is to reduce the number of its Local Policing Areas from 11 to 5. This is intended to “enhance neighbourhood policing and strengthen partnership working”.
Council was not entirely convinced (well who would be) that this enhancement would happen if the LPAs were made bigger. It agreed to put these doubts to the review team.
Trees
Council approved a contract for doing the necessary (and substantial) work required on trees round the parish.
Playgrounds
I abstained on a vote to approve the appointment of a consultant for a procurement exercise for playground equipment at Great Kingshill and Templewood. I did so because I think Council needs to do more work before it starts thinking about procurement.
For example, I think Council needs to look at its policy on playgrounds; the current policy only allows Council to procure playground equipment for playgrounds on land that Council owns. Other playgrounds in the parish (Hughenden Valley, Widmer End etc.) are only eligible for grants up to 20% of the total costs.
HPC has decided that Hughenden Community Support Trust owns the land where the Great Kingshill playground is sited, and it has leased the land from HCST. It appears that the lease requires HPC to get consent from HCST before HPC can use the land for anything other than allotments. I would like to be sure that the Council has HCST's consent before it spends tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on playground equipment on this land.
I also think Council needs to see the business cases for the playgrounds before it moves to procurement and to consider the options and their estimated costs. There is £61k earmarked for these two playgrounds in the reserves for next year.
Co-options
Council approved a draft paper which I prepared proposing HPC policies and procedures for filling its vacancies. It’s a pretty mind-numbing document intended to ensure Council complies with the law and good practice. So, I am going to also prepare a short leaflet for anyone thinking of becoming a councillor.
Grant for Bryants Bottom’s Village Green
Council approved a grant of about £400 as a contribution towards the Green’s maintenance.