Comment. Am I against co-option?

Reply to comment, Am I against co-option?

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

No I’m not against co-option I happen to think it’s a much needed tool and plays its part in the process we call democracy. I also accept that it may be a tool used more often than the election route in a well managed council, I fully support it in its place.

If you have a council that is open and transparent, involved with and connected to its community I would expect the co-option method of filling a vacancy to be more popular, efficient and cost effective than the election route. This is because many residents would be aware of council activity, actively involved with the council and should a vacancy arise I would expect many people to be aware of it without going to press or other forms of advertising, apart from a notice on the Parish Notice Board of course.

Word of mouth would advertise the vacancy much wider than possible press advertising and in a much more targeted way and in such a mutually beneficial environment I would hope there would be a number of people wishing to take part in the community decision making process by seeking to join the council.

Such councils I’m sure would flourish and the subsequent benefits that would flow in the direction of residents and the wider local community  would be very evident, maybe that’s an ideal world but isn’t that what we should strive for? If not we may as well admit defeat and all go home!

I also accept that co-option can be an effective tool in ‘locking down’ a council and ensuring it stays a ‘closed shop’, this is where I have a problem, co-option isn’t the problem it’s the way some councils use and manipulate the tool for their own purposes and against the interests of residents.

With Preston Parish Council the co-option route is the default mechanism and has been since the mid 1990’s, virtually nothing has been done to alter that and the only promotion of a vacancy is the absolute minimum required by law, this has now been the council standard for more than 16 years and the new administration is simply carrying it forward without any vision, to my mind it’s indicative of a failing council which lacks direction.

Preston Parish Council has alienated it’s local community for more than 16 years and that community is understandably reticent and suspicious of the new administration because it is very evident they are under the wings of the old lot who damaged the relationship in the first place, after almost two years without progress the position of residents is entirely understandable and I’m sure it will remain that way until any independently minded councillors step forward and begin changing things. If councillors take that brave step they may find residents are much more willing to step forward with them.

It isn’t as though alchemy is involved, the council should have one underlying objective, reconnect to the whole community it is there to represent, the only remaining debate is ‘how to achieve that?’ It obviously can’t be done overnight after 16 years of neglect it is bound to take full commitment from the council and be a protracted and ongoing process and that process will require a budget.

Has the council got the commitment for such an effort? If the council and all individual councillor’s have the best interests of their community at heart they should at least try to give some kind of effort and leadership and try over a period of time to bridge the gap between residents and council. If councillors are only prepared to sit on their backsides for a couple of hours each month and say ‘there’s no point residents aren’t interested’ , I would suggest it’s the councillors who aren’t interested. In that case they need to resign and let someone who will do something take their places!

If I can get off that subject and return to the issue of co-option, a very good councillor resigned in June 2012 and the council was looking to co-opt I think the following month.

I strongly protested about that co-option by letter and predicted that a failed candidate at the 2011 election would be the sole person showing an interest in joining the council and that he would be co-opted at the next council meeting. I turned out to be right and that person was a member of the previous administration who failed to get re-elected.

In this case the co-option method was being employed to get all the failed councillors back on board, the residents of Preston obviously didn’t want these people as councillors because they didn’t vote for them in sufficient numbers, residents preferred other people, it’s only certain councillors who want them back and that reason is to boost their own position, it has nothing to do with the best interests of Preston or it’s residents.

How could new councillors allow that to happen, they had already given the old administration one of it’s unsuccessful re-election candidates back through co-option and here they are willing and prepared to co-opt a second. I thought the idea was to get new blood on the council and, have a new beginning not assist the old crew in re-co-opting their buddies, who helped to damage the parish to the extent they did in the first place, it really does defy logic.

Probably as a result of being challenged the council didn’t co-opt that candidate but sought other interested parties. At the following council meeting they informed us there were 3 interested parties and then at the next council meeting we were informed those three people had withdrawn their declarations of interest and there was now no-one. A miracle happened and a new person declared an interest, a person who nobody knew and who had never attended any council meeting that I had ever been to but just happens to live very close to the back garden of someone very strongly connected to the council, this is how the council prefers to operate, a closed shop. I find it difficult to accept that out of about 1860 electors not one of them is willing to take part in representing the village, maybe they don’t come forward because they’ve never been asked to, or informed about any vacancy. In 2011 we had about a dozen new candidates, why, because a wider audience became aware.

To top it all they illegally co-opted the new councillor in October 2012 so that person is not actually a councillor (see ‘Illegal Councillor’ posting), the council have never challenged that view with any alternative explanation.

If my accusation is wrong they should have contacted me and clarified their position explaining why I am wrong and cleared the matter up. That would have been done by any caring council in order to spare the feelings of a new and possibly vulnerable councillor, by failing to do so I believe the council is doing a great disservice to that council member and therefore shows little regard for her wellbeing.

If the council would like to put an alternative case forward I am open to their explanation and if they are right (it can easily be confirmed) I will apologise not only to the council in writing (and on this Blog) but also in writing and in person to the councillor involved, as that council member is an innocent party and deserves better consideration than the council is currently giving her. I do know councillors read this blog and will therefore be aware of this posting when it is published.

Preston needs new councillor’s who are visionary and prepared to stand behind their principles and give the village a desperately needed new start, discarding the old ways of doing things which very clearly did not work and have no hope of ever working, their methods belong in the dark ages.

I have included the letter to council that has been referred to in this posting. In addition to the normal removal of names I have removed a short paragraph at the end to protect an individuals identity, the council do have the full text.

Chairman Preston Parish Council

                                                                                                            04/07/12

Dear Councillor ************

Re. Council vacancy.

Thank you for contacting ************* who has now furnished me with the information requested. I presume this subject is yet another for which the council has not produced a Policy or Guidance procedure? So no one is sure how the council should deal with it, so its left up to the leadership *** ***** to decide how best to bury it.

The ****** ***** informs me that the vacancy has only been advertised in the Parish Notice Board, expressions of interest will be given during the coming council meeting and a co-option will take place. This may well be strictly within the legal definitions covering Parish Council Vacancies but it is extremely restrictive and can in no way be described as inclusive, democratic or reaching out to the wider population of Preston.

Is the council suggesting all residents  read notices in the notice board making this the most effective way of communicating the message, or, the vast majority of residents read the notice board or, maybe just a simple majority read the notice board? We could stroll down the scale but we are all aware none of those statements would be accurate, there is at best a mere handful of residents who read the notice board, I would suggest less than 30 during the display period, we have approximately 1860 voters on the electoral register. That strongly suggests the council have effectively ‘buried’ the vacancy in the best place they know and relabeled it ‘advertising’,  we really do deserve better than this.

We could argue another way considering this action, the council, given the circumstances are withholding information from the residents relating to a vacancy for a councillor and consequently denying the public the opportunity to be included in the democratic process. I believe that to be a reasonable argument because the council will be aware of the number of ‘hits’ the notice board gets but if not, lets carry out an independent survey to establish the facts for future reference.

I would have thought Council vacancies should at the very least be advertised on the Councils web site (as poor as the site may be) and in the local press, this could have been included in the ‘New parish office flies in’ article in The Gazette on 28/6/12,  a golden opportunity! But, the council chose not to. 

This suggests the council have ‘buried’ the information in order to access the preferred default process, co-option. The council was elected a little more than 13 months ago and to date we will have had 3 councillors co-opted representing 23% of the council. There appears to be a pattern emerging that’s very similar to the wilderness of 1997 to 2011, 13 years without an election.

It is very clear from the councils action on this item that the council have no inclination or enthusiasm for observing the ‘spirit’  of the democratic process such as encouraging involvement from a wider audience to ensure all residents are given the opportunity to be included. Instead, the council adhere to the methods enthusiastically adopted and promoted by the previous council leadership. Those methods are restrictive, non-democratic and non-inclusive, intentionally operating just within the legal framework to ensure their continued control or in this case regain their control.

This is the very opposite to what Preston and its residents need at this time.

I believe the co-option process should be halted and delayed in order that a full campaign be undertaken to inform residents and seek candidates for the post.

Residents are understandably distrustful of the parish council and councillors because of this kind of behavior and because of their relationship with the council over 13 years, in order to reverse this situation a sustained programme of consultation, communication and involvement is required…not a blatant continuation of the same old neglect that had been dished out and thrust upon residents for 13 years.

It could have been an excellent opportunity for a Special Bulletin Newsletter, as they seem to be few and far between these days.

1. Covering the election process and seeking candidates from a wider base, I know many residents      would like to see a return of openness and democracy to Preston. Something that has been lacking for many, many years.

2.  Inviting any prospective nominees to a ‘Council Seminar’ for briefing and Q&A session.

3      Telling residents of the councils success with the Village Hall and New Council Office.

4      Cover the successful Jubilee Celebrations

5      It would have been ‘visionary’ to declare on ‘Open Day’, at the new council office when it opens officially with most if not all councillors in attendance to greet and engage with residents, supplying ‘tea and buns’ (I’m sure residents would have done the baking! And supplied the ingredients!) as refreshment for your Parishioners while you ‘get to know each other’? Maybe find out what ‘real’ residents are thinking and how residents and council can join forces to improve life in the village.

       6.  Get the press onboard and make a splash. Maybe invite a ‘special guest’? Be seen region wide!

What a Newsletter that could have been! with a follow up nearer the opening date to galvanize attendance, you even have a child minder in your midst to help with children but, the most important of all, especially to residents…your actually taking the time and trouble to engage with us, how refreshing………..Such a missed opportunity!

It goes without saying that there are a number of councillors who do not buy into this ‘open’ process and will boycott any such moves and try to derail them, let that be as it is, you won’t change them. Please start engaging with residents, who should always be the most important consideration to our elected representatives in whom we placed our trust. Your real responsibility is to 3,000+ residents and not 4 councillors!!

Of course wider advertising and publicity might not bring additional candidates forward but no-one would be able to say they didn’t know! Nor could anyone fault your efforts and good intentions. After 13 years of neglect it may cost a couple of quid and take a little time and effort to re-engage with residents, regain their trust and reignite their enthusiasm for participation and, such rewards are only possible if you are sincere in your efforts and not seen as puppets continuing much as before under the guidance of the previous council leadership whose sole aim is to have a return to things exactly as they were.

You must remember that from 1997 to 2011 there were no elections in Preston only co-options resulting in an unelected council that represented no one and was in office without a mandate. Essentially a group of people who managed to actively alienate residents over many years, and waste 10’s of thousands of pounds of our precept money. Apparently advised by *** ****** ***** who it would seem has not learned any lessons from his past experience. The same people who are now making a resurgence and without decisive action now, I would predict they will be back in full control in May 2013, your ‘caretaker’ administration will no longer be tolerated and you will be disposed of, their work is not yet finished.

I have no problem with co-opting as a tool and I support co-opting in its place, but when it becomes the default process there is reason for concern, especially as I believe it becomes an engineered process for the benefit of a minority element that do not have Preston’s best interests at heart.

In May 2011, I predicted to a number of people including some new councillors that in May 2012, if the new council did not achieve certain goals (it didn’t) the old administration would have licked its wounds and again be exerting its influence, would be represented in a senior position and from there would regain full control within another year, they are on course. They will move decidedly ahead of the game if they can control certain events.

 A taste of these events are,

1.          Advertising for any vacancy fits the bare minimum required by law, severely restricting access and opportunity.

2.          Limit expressions of interest, increasing any possible outcome to be favourable to the old administration.

3.         ‘Preferred candidate’ such as a member of the previous administration, at

least as a ‘Front Runner’.

The old administration have now built up sufficient numbers (without been noticed or rumbled) to ensure a successful co-option of their candidate, a walkover, increasing their overall numbers still further, the old administration are now ahead of the game and on course to make a clean sweep in May 2013.

At least two councillors have told me, “no *** that can’t happen, we have things in place”, this looks like a no contest to me!

Preston will again be returned to the Armageddon of pre May 2011, to the old administration, they have merely suffered a hick-up. I for one will keep fighting to stop them!

It is absolutely essential that strong procedures and working practices are put into place before its too late! *** ***** should in my view be actively pursuing this as a matter of urgency, he seems not to be, nor does he appear to have any enthusiasm to do so.

‘Short paragraph removed to protect the privacy of an individual.’

I don’t expect a response, this is merely an observation that hopefully may strike a chord.

Yours sincerely

*** *****

cc.            All councillors.

Reply to comment 'What is the pic on 'Council size, why 9 councillor's'' posting

Reply to comment, what is the pic on ‘Council size, why 9 councillors’ posting.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

Interesting question, I believe it to be taken from the ‘Enclosures Act 1776’, or similar, obviously a copy of some kind. I do not intend to go into an explanation of the ‘Enclosures Act’ because there has been a few since the 18^th centaury and the full answer would be a book, I don’t have the time, unfortunately.

Briefly the enclosures movement started in the 15^th centaury when people had skinny strips of land dotted about the place and the enclosures act is the start of peoples land being brought together in one place and farm houses starting to appear.

Over the course of a few hundred years, much of Britain's land has been privatized, that is to say taken out of some form of collective ownership and management and handed over to individuals. Currently, in our "property-owning democracy", nearly half the country is owned by 40,000 land millionaires, or 0.06 per cent of the population, while most of the rest of us spend half our working lives paying off the debt on a patch of land barely large enough to accommodate a dwelling and a washing line.

The original ‘Enclosure Act’ occurred in Great Britain in the 18th century. It caused all the skinny plots of land to be joined together, since a lot of wealthy men owned over 3/4 of the land the vote was won by only a couple of wealthy people instead of the many peasants against the vote. The land was joined and then people were given their share of land based on the amount of land that they owned before the act. They were also given a small parcel of land to help them but often the land was useless. The land owners had to fence their land in order to live on it. Most couldn’t afford this so they had to sell and move into urban areas. This gave 'muscle’ to start the industrial revolution.

In other words, the landed aristocracy forced all the poor labourers off  the "village commons" that now became "enclosed" as their own property, because they were the ones that actually owned the majority of the land, and the social classes were highly stratified at this time in Great Britain. This was done using new technology and advanced cropping systems that would replace many labourers. These jobless poor would end up as constituting the working class, or "proletariat" in the Industrial Revolution that would follow shortly.

There’s lots of literature on the subject and very interesting reading it is, can I suggest you get yourself a book without causing offence? You could do a lot worse.

The pic actually came about when we were fighting a development in Preston and researching the original medieval village of Preston, we managed to obtain aerial photo’s of the site, absolutely fascinating!

The pic at the top of this posting is an aerial view of the site of the development we fought, successfully I might add. The medieval village is located at the bottom right of pic, you can just make out some ridge and furrows, the X if you can see it marks an Anthrax burial site from the 1950's.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your comment, good luck with your reading if you decide to.

Reply to comment, what is co-option?

Reply to comment, what is co-option?

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

When a councillor resigns the resulting vacancy needs to be filled, in the normal course of things there are two ways that can be done. Firstly an election could be held giving members of the parish a vote on who they would like to see elected onto the council, the successful candidate is the one with the most votes, alternatively, council members are able to vote for a candidate of their choice without public participation.

For either one to occur certain steps have to be taken. Whenever a council member resigns that resignation by law is effective immediately, a councillor cannot submit a letter of resignation stating that he/she wishes to resign in say two months time.

If a letter of resignation is received from a councillor the Parish Clerk is required to inform the appointed Monitoring Officer (Returning Officer) of the East Riding council that the resignation has taken place at the earliest opportunity because the Returning Officer is responsible for the conduct of and arrangements for Parish Council elections.

Filling the vacancy by election.

The Parish Council must then advertise the vacancy in places that are as conspicuous as possible and must be displayed for 14 days from the date of the notice, the Parish Council may also advertise the vacancy in any other manner they wish.

If during that 14 days, 10 electors from the Parish Electoral List call for an election to be held the Returning Officer will inform the Parish Clerk immediately.

The Returning Officer will decide the date of the election, which must take place within 60 days from the date of the notice.

Filling the vacancy by co-option

If a minimum of 10 electors do not request an election within the 14 days the Returning Officer will notify the Parish Clerk that the position must be filled by co-option as soon as is practical.

In this case the council will invite interested parties to put their names forward for consideration and will then place the item (co-option) on the agenda for a subsequent council meeting. Any number of people can put in a notice of interest to the clerk (subject to qualification, see posting ‘Role of a councillor’) who will then put their names forward for the consideration of the council.

Providing the council is quorate (minimum number of members) the co-option will be decided at that council meeting. The winning candidate requires a simple majority of votes from those councillors present and voting, it does not need to be a full council.

The winning candidate should then be asked to take his/her seat in council and sign the documents accepting the office of councillor.

If there is a mass resignation and the number of vacancies leaves the council without a quorum (minimum of 5 members for Preston) the District Council (East Riding in our case) will order an election to be held. The District Council can also by order appoint people to fill all or any of the vacancies until other councillors are elected and take up office.

Just as a note, there are provisions in the Local Government Act 1972 that creates a distinction between co-opted Councillor’s and elected councilor’s and councils may take differing views of their respective positions but as it stands at the moment I don’t believe the issue has been resolved by the Secretary of State so for now the distinction stands.

This hopefully explains the outline adequately.

Thanks for reading and for your comment.

Council size, why 9 councillor's

Comment reply

Hi Pete

Prior to 2011 as mentioned in previous posts, Preston Parish Council (PPC) or residents had not enjoyed the benefits of an actual public poll (election) to elect any councillor for at least 14 years, which takes us back to the mid 1990’s. If public elections are held every 4 years how have they managed that?

There are 13 councillors on PPC and to make any meeting legal they need a third of councillors to attend (5), once they have that number (a Quorum) they are legally in a position of being able to conduct council business and make decisions on our (residents) behalf.

Since the mid 1990’s there has been a core of councillors (6) who have manipulated the council for their own purposes, I’m not suggesting what those purposes are at this point. We had 6 councillors who were able to ‘choose’ who they co-opted onto the council with them, giving us (the public) no say in the matter at all. We had 6 councillors who considered it their own personal business who is co-opted (elected by them) onto the council and all decisions effecting residents of Preston have been made by the same 6 people, for at least 14 years which led to gross mismanagement, we as residents had never had any influence or voice on who joins our council to represent us, or any voice in council for that matter!

Those 6 councillors will take great care vetting who is acceptable to them as they have for so many years and ensure they co-opt people who are not a challenge or threat to them or their private agenda. Once those vacancies are filled it’s back to business as usual, no residents of Preston have had any say in who represents them or in the running of our parish since the mid 1990’s

Remember they already have the power to legally make decisions on our (residents) behalf because they always ensure there are at least 5 to make up the quorum and, in order to maintain and secure that position they must prevent a public poll which would take the choice out of their hands, they might end up with someone who is prepared to challenge them. As was proven in May 2011, although there has never been any challenge to them.

So how do they get around public polls (elections) every 4 years? They simply have a number of councillors maybe 4 or 5 stand down (resign) prior to the public poll, this could take place over a period of 6 months because in the 6 months leading up to a public poll the council does not have to fill those vacancies, normal rules are suspended for that period.

We now have 13 vacancies for Parish Councillors and only 6 or 7 candidates (the original 6/7 councillors) standing for ‘re-election’. There is clearly no point in going to the expense of a public poll when there isn’t enough candidates to fill all the vacancies. Result? Those 6/7 councillors are deemed to have been ‘re-elected’ unopposed and are duly installed as ‘new’ councillor’s', without any public involvement, this action always denied residents their say because none of them were physically voted onto the council by residents, they got there by default.

Because there are 6 or 7 of them they have ensured they are able to form a quorum and therefore have the power to legally operate as a council (minimum number of 5 councillors), they are now in a position to co-opt (decide who they want to join them without further interference from or any regard for the publics opinions (Preston residents).

We are now basically back to where we started, those ‘core’ councillors will now chose who fills those remaining vacant seats and they will be careful to chose people who have no interest in opposing their agenda, they have now maintained their tight grip on Preston.

How would they know a dozen people wouldn’t stand for election, easy, they have spent 14 years making absolutely sure there is no interest from residents by their actions listed elsewhere in this Blog. How secretive were they? The fact that a number of the Chairman’s neighbours were not aware he was even on the council might give an indication to that.

There have been a few people who joined the council over the years who have had good intentions but one or two people will never adversely affect the 6 core councillors who orchestrate council activity. At some point when it becomes very clear that they are not able to influence anything or get better arrangements in place on whatever subject, new councillors simply resign and the core councillors are again able to pick someone of their choosing by co-option.

In 2011 we had 6 new councillors elected by the public, if you analyse what influence that has had on the council or how it has improved life for the residents of Preston, I’m sure you’ll find there is no difference at all, so why did we bother? Same old story, I don't know!

That’s the problem with having 13 councillor’s? it’s much easier for that core to bunker down and control council activity, strengthening their position by co-option.

What difference would having 9 councillors make, well there’s more than one school of thought on the subject, some would argue it weakens resident’s position while others would argue it strengthens resident’s position.

My personal view is that a reduced number (not necessarily 9) of councillors would strengthen the position of residents because whilst it makes the current core group of councillors (6) much more difficult to maintain their position it also makes it easier for residents to elect independently minded people onto the council in relatively small numbers who are able to make a difference. The key, from recent experience, is that we need those independently minded people because they will put their views and opinions forward on behalf of resident’s, in council and, be willing to stand by them without being persuaded,  intimidated or bullied into joining the core group.

The result should be a more open and transparent council with a flow of information that encourages other residents to become involved.

Yes we did manage to elect 6 new councillors in May 2011 and that should have made a difference but those inexperienced councillors simply chose to ask the core group what they should do and how they should do it. The core group must have thought the sun was shining on them to have such willing novices, they have guided them ever since and consequently been able to continue their policies at arms length and with very little interruption.

New councillor’s in my humble opinion should have thought ‘gee, we don’t really know what we’re supposed to be doing, lets allocate a little time to get to know these new roles we are supposed to play and take it from there’.

No matter what you’re view point is, Preston continues to be run by half a council so having 13 councillors is of no benefit to residents at all.

Hope this helps and thanks for reading and commenting.

Community Governance Review

Community Governance Review

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

We have been asked by email where we expect this Blog and it’s efforts to lead, do we have a set plan for achieving it’s aims and objectives and what steps are we able to take to challenge the Parish Council?

We do not have a hard and set plan in place we have an initial outline of what we would like to achieve and what steps might be included but we are also hoping to attract other residents to join us and become involved. With that in mind it would be wrong to predetermine a set plan at this stage, which ultimately must be drawn up and developed by all those involved.

Although we have some main aims outlined, which include achieving a more open and transparent Parish Council, which actively welcomes the involvement of residents in their activities. We would also hope to be in a position for the next Local Elections in 2015 to field a number of candidates that are like minded and have the best interests of Preston at the forefront of their minds, if that were to be successful we would then be in a position to make some very desirable and much needed changes to how our parish is managed.

We are prepared to seriously consider the option of petitioning East Riding Council for a Community Governance Review, the timing of which would need to be carefully considered.

Having put this proposition (along with others) forward to a number of residents who have posed the above question, it is this particular item that we have been asked to clarify, as they are unaware of such an option.

A petition for a Community Governance Review could well be considered as a drastic step to take and must be carefully considered before any progressive action is taken. This post is meant to outline the requirements and process for such a review purely to inform residents of the option, we hope it is a relatively clear outline, it is not meant to be a definitive analysis.

Community Governance Review (CGR)

The requirements for CGR’s are listed in a number of pieces of legislation which we will not go into here but if anyone would like the details of the legislation we would be happy to guide you in its direction.

The carrying out of such a review is the responsibility of the County Council in this case East Riding County Council. CGR’s can be carried out following a successful and valid petition for a number of reasons including changes in population or in reaction to specific or local issues such as a councils poor performance and management, illegal actions by a parish council, council size etc. and is meant to ensure that community governance arrangements continue to reflect local identities and facilitate effective local government. There is a mechanism in place to implement any recommendations that may follow a CGR mid term between Local Elections if needed, in this case the term of councillor’s would be the remaining time left before the next local elections.

Council Size

Some of the reasons for a petition may well be ‘local issues’ and ‘council size’ which describes the number of councillors to be elected to the whole council. The 1972 Act as amended, specifies that each parish council must have at least five councillor’s, there is no maximum upper limit. There are no rules relating to the allocation of those councillors between parish wards but each parish ward must have at least one parish councillor.

In practice, there is a wide variation of council size between parish councils. That variation appears to be influenced by population. Research by the Aston Business School Parish and Town Councils in England (HMSO, 1992), found that the typical parish council representing less than 500 people had between 5 and 8 councillors; those between 501 and 2,500 had 6 to 12 councillors; and those between 2,501 and 10,000 had 9 to 16 councillors. Most parish councils with a population of between 10,001 and 20,000 had between 13 and 27 councillors, while almost all councils representing a population of over 20,000 had between 13 and 31 councillors. It is well documented that although the research above was carried some time ago there is no reason to believe that this pattern of council size to population has altered significantly since the research was carried out.

Preston Parish Council Size

A Parish Council size of 13 comes within a size more appropriate to an electoral roll of  2,501 and 10,000 (9 to 16 councillors). 13 councillors is also a starting point for parish's with over 20,000 electors, Preston is less than 10% of that figure so why do we have as many as 13?

If we take Preston Parish Council’s Electoral Roll which contains approx. 1,850 (April 2010) electors a more appropriate size for Preston Parish Council would be 6 to 12 councillors. With 13 councillors we have more parish councillors then might be considered necessary.

My personal view in light of the control exerted on the council by relatively few councillors and the mismanagement that has resulted in, along with the unnecessary cost to the public purse, I would consider nine councillors a much more appropriate size for Preston Parish Council. This would make it much easier for residents to be elected onto the council and be in a position to exercise a democratic influence, the numbers split between Preston North and Preston South would need to be determined by consultation.

In my judgment there is a compelling case for a governance review with regard to Preston Parish Council for a number of good reasons not just on the question of size.

Local issues

There is lots of evidence that the current and previous Preston Parish Council, have actively alienated residents from the democratic process. The council have willfully wasted many, many thousands of pounds of public funds taken from the residents of Preston, the council act in an unlawful way whenever it suites their purpose, from convening illegal council meetings and conducting council business to refusing to observe the legal provisions of legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act. In this category we would include legislation that the council abuse and misinterpret for their own purposes of withholding information from the public and residents such as The Public Bodies (access to meetings) Act 1960.

Many councillors have displayed gross dishonesty not only to residents but also to official bodies such as the Standards Committee by giving intentionally false written statements.

We don’t intend to list everything here but we shall at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.  Simply put, there are many ‘local issues’ that we feel would warrant a CGR.

The trigger for a CGR

For a petition to be valid it must meet certain conditions. The first of these conditions is that a petition must be signed by the requisite number of local electors based on the most recently published Electoral Register.

The thresholds are, for an area with less than 500 local electors, the petition must be signed by at least 50% of them. For an area with between 500 and 2,500 local electors the petition must be signed by at least 250 of them. For an area with more than 2,500 local electors, the petition must be signed by at least 10% of them.

Clearly, for a CGR to be triggered in Preston it would require at least 250 signatures, I happen to believe that obtaining such a number is quite possible given due consideration and planning.

It we are able to focus this Blog on Preston and thereby make as many Preston residents aware of the situation as possible it will boost the chances of gaining the required number of signatures, if that is the desired outcome.

If a CGR were to be actioned we would work towards restricting its recommendations to council size and achieve any objectives via that route. There is always the possibility that other considerations are taken under the umbrella of the review such as Preston South and we cannot predict the outcome.

Any recommendations as a result of a CGR and their adoption would be a matter for East Riding County Council to consider and implement as they see fit. Once a successful petition has been validated my understanding without going off to check is that East Riding is obliged to act on it and carry out the review, the cost I believe would fall to Preston Parish Council.

I said at the beginning of this post that careful consideration must be given to such an action and if that point arises, that is the time to collect all pertinent information relating to the subject to enable full consideration and plans to be finalised.

If sufficient residents of Preston gather together and decide to take any action we will be prepared to collate the information necessary to enable good decisions to be made.

We do hope this post has outlined CGR’s and is of help to anyone interested.

Thanks for your E-mails.

Reply to comment, Community Hall

Reply to comment

Witten for the Blog by a Preston resident

I would agree with you that a village hall is normally under the remit of the Parish Council. However, Preston Parish Council established a Charity (Preston Community Hall Charity) with the aim of providing a Community Hall for Preston, which in itself is a good cause that warrants support from residents.

To get support from residents they need to be part of the process and involved with the activity that was aimed at providing a Community Hall. In my opinion, by being part of things gives residents a sense of involvement and ‘ownership’ of any such project and therefore boosts it’s progress.

We have had a running battle with Preston Parish Council for almost three years now on the provision of a Community Hall. This is because, having established the Charity the council then went underground and pursued the project in an underhand way with no involvement from the community and all things to do with the hall appeared to be very secretive. The community wasn’t even allowed a say in any sort of consultation and consequently very few residents knew of the project.

The council spent about £7500 of residents money getting plans drawn up and applying for the demolition of the existing hall in order that a very expensive New Community Hall could be built. The council continued to resist enquiries seeking information relating to the Community Hall insisting that they couldn’t even mention the words Community Hall during council meetings or any other time because there are laws that prevent them from doing so, that sounds completely illogical to me.

We have never been able to locate the existence of any such laws and despite requests that the council identify those restrictions, they have never responded, that can only be because no such legal restrictions exist and what the Parish Council were telling us was entirely untrue and that can only have been deliberate on the councils part.

In fact, the Charities Commission support Council Charities giving updates to residents and public during council meetings as that helps ‘connect’ to the community. Both the councils stance and the Charities Commission stance cannot both be right, one of them must be dishonest, which one?

We were promised and assured that at the Preston Community Hall Charity AGM 2010 all questions would be answered fully and to the satisfaction of residents. Needless to say that AGM meeting was very well attended and we eagerly attended to receive that information.

The meeting was opened by the Parish Council Chairman and we were informed that the only business on the agenda was the accounts and that no other subject was listed for discussion, once again the council reneged on those promises and assurances at the last minute, not at all unusual for Preston Parish Council. The room was full of residents waiting to hear about progress and activity on the Community Hall, you can imagine the commotion that created, the AGM lasted 1 hour and 2 minutes.

If I can just return to the application for planning permission for a moment, I believe the approval for the building of a new hall was renewed in January 2011 but the permission for demolition of the old village hall was not, therefore any new structure could not be built because there was no permission to clear the site for that purpose and the plans were abandoned resulting in a wastage of £7,500 of residents money. We were informed by the East Riding Council Planning Department that they had withdrawn the application because the Parish Council had not responded to their enquiries, the Parish Council deny this. Again both accounts cannot be correct so one must be intentionally misleading.

I asked the council in writing in 2010 if there had been any kind of survey carried out on the existing Village Hall that professionally established it’s current condition and possible suitability for refurbishment. I received the reply (in writing) that as far as the council were aware there had never been any such survey, I knew this to be untrue because I was in possession of a survey copy that had been carried out on the Village Hall just a few years before and it gave the hall a clean bill of health, structurally!

After pressing the council they finally agreed that there had indeed been a survey but denied it had been carried out for the Parish Council and made the point that the Parish Council had not commissioned or funded the survey. Prior to this the council had always denied the existence of any survey, why?

There are current councillors who attended council meetings regularly to ask questions on this subject in 2010 but since joining the council have gone very quiet and would seem to no longer have any desire for transparency.

If there are legal restrictions on the council it’s very simple and easy to state those restrictions and that would end the matter, without that it can only be that the council is being deliberately untruthful or deliberately obstructive.

So we return to a village hall being the remit of the Parish Council, in any normal council I would agree with that assumption but with Preston Parish Council things are never that simple or clear cut.

Much of this has now been superseded by the new council (sorry, Charity) allowing residents to refurbish the existing hall.

I do hope this helps but some of these items are to be dealt with in greater detail in a later posting.

Thanks for reading and commenting. 

Council Meetings/Special Projects.

Council Meetings/Special Projects

Reply to comment

Written for the blog by a Preston resident

Hi Graham.

My being difficult to deal with is a myth usually promoted by Preston Parish Council, though I fail to see how they would know that, as they have never tried to deal with me.

The councils position has always been one of bullying, intimidation and ignoring me, under such circumstances I’m sure most people would react in an undesirable way. I published a posting  recently with extracts from a letter to the council from October 2010, its quite clear from those extracts the council’s answer to any contact was to intimidate the contacting person in an effort to prevent them making further contact, that policy does not appear to have undergone any major changes. 

The posts that have appeared on this blog very clearly show that from before I ever wrote to the council, a councillor angrily knocked on my door and gave me a good telling off because someone else in the village had written to them asking for information.

It would have been far better for the council to respond to that resident’s enquiry in a pleasant manner and deal with him through a position of respect instead of generating a conflict over it and choosing to ensnare other people in their web (myself). If they were then unable to accommodate him or his offer of assistance or take on board some of his comments they should have informed him in a reasonable manner with a degree of understanding and appreciation for his interest!

In my opinion the council’s judgment was entirely misguided and continues to be so to this day. After all, the council is there to listen to residents and take their views to council for consideration, at this point it could have been settled amicably and without ill feeling to everyone’s satisfaction.

The issues I have with the council do not originate from a position of wanting a conflict, my concerns, whether they are right or wrong (that hasn’t yet been determined) are non-the-less genuine and are voiced from a position of concern for our Parish and its residents.

As for my style of writing giving away my feelings, it sometimes does, particularly if I feel someone is treating me unreasonably without cause. It they have cause, then that’s a different matter I would try to mitigate and get on a more reasonable footing with whoever is involved.

You ask why I don’t ‘apply’ to go on the council? I wouldn’t survive five minutes on the council so for me that’s a non starter.

It has been said by a number of people that I attend more council meetings than some councillors and thinking about it I suppose that’s true, but I can leave the meeting any time I chose and not cause offence to the institution.

Whenever I attend council meetings I know before I leave home the content I am likely to encounter, it’s the same old thing month in and month out! It can be mind numbing at times, but I attend meetings for a particular reason.

If you would like to check the agenda’s and minutes from past meetings you will see they are all very much alike with very little in the way of variation in fact the main and in most cases the only change is that the Planning Application notified to the council change and ‘special projects’ are seldom included, in short there is nothing of interest and the council does not appear to have any foresight in any direction that could be viewed as interesting. I see council meetings at present as a holding exercise with only the same old items with the same old answers. Members turn up and go through the same monthly motions of raising their hands to vote when requested and then all go home having, I’m sure in their view, done their bit.

I’m sure I will be criticized for that view but that’s how I feel about council meetings at present, even since a new administration took over there has not been one single item that has undergone any change. Given those circumstances I’m afraid I would have to say there is virtually no reason to have gone to the trouble of voting for new councillors when judging by the differences in council (of which there are none) you would never know they are there!

I happen to believe that it is essential for the council to get its house in order on many fronts and I believe they need to do it sooner rather than later. In June 2011 (following the inaugural meeting) the council should have put in place a 12 month plan with responsibilities clearly identified, that plan should have been defined and actioned within a three month period following groundwork and research leading to a full Council Systems Audit (could easily have been a bespoke system formatted in council) and understanding of council business and methods of operating, identifying areas that needed attention and identifying the attention needed, all finalised in a 12 month period. In effect the council is now 21 months behind in putting in place any improvements, in fact they haven’t even started to get any sort of plan together, that’s not for me!

I would not possibly be able to sit on a council that had no forward vision or plan to improve the council for all parties concerned including councillors and residents. In my opinion that would be a total and absolute waste of my time and effort every month of the year, it would be far more productive to sit and watch paint dry! I really don’t intend that to offend but after attending council meetings for the last few years it just happens to be my honest and inescapable impression.

There are no apparent projects in Preston (the Community Hall is a Charity project and has nothing to do with the council). Those that do, by some miracle, actually see the light of day are invariably neglected and left to go into dereliction, a good example would be the Preston Parish Website which is given great hype and write up promising us ‘lots of useful information’, ‘crucially, this would make it a lot easier to follow the deliberations of the village’s decision makers’, ‘download the latest minutes and newsletters’ and you can ‘find out lots of useful information about the parish’ and there is a calendar which will be populated with local events’.

Apart from Agenda’s and minutes the site is mainly full of empty pages with absolutely no information on them. When residents view this after such promising words from the council and are then left with the reality I fully understand when people say to me ‘what’s the point’!’

Could the council at least start to populate their own website, please.

We would be interested to know how many page views the council website has had from going live?

Do you think the council will tell us, with verification?

The ‘HU12 Online’ article of the Preston Parish Council website from 19^th April 2012 is Reproduced below.

PRESTON PARISH COUNCIL is now online! The website was first published in February and is currently being filled with lots of useful information.

Crucially – this should make it a lot easier to follow the deliberations of the village’s decision-makers.

Through the website you will be able to download the latest Minutes and Newsletters as well as find our lots of useful information about the parish. There is a calendar which will be populated with local events.

We have included the Minutes of the last meeting here for you to download: Preston Parish Council Minutes – Wed 14th March 2012 but do visit the new website.

Measures of success

Measures of success?

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

Graham.

Do we actually achieve anything?

Yes I think we do,

1.  If we go back nearly 3 years there were a number of residents that had great problems with the previous council administration. A number of residents got together to stand as nominees in the Local Elections of 2011 and managed to get six new councillors elected, this meant that the surviving members of the old administration had their cozy arrangements of co-opting new councillors of their own choice fly out of the window and they have had to contend with the new councillors the residents of Preston elected, which I’m also sure has caused great disruption to their medium term plans. This must have been tiresome for them but they were responsible for  the mismanagement of Preston for about 15 years without challenge or interference, so the outcome was good as far as we were concerned.

2. Since the mid 90’s (at least) there had never been a by-election to fill a casual vacancy on Preston Parish Council, all casual vacancies were filled by co-option (council members deciding who they prefer). The latest vacancy following a resignation was to be filled once again by co-option, the old methods were to continue without interruption. Following hard and to the point representations             to the council on the subject of co-option and predicting who would be co-opted (an unsuccessful candidate from the old administration), it transpired the only expression of interest was from the person who we predicted would be co-opted! That would very certainly have been a closed deal had we not had our say, the council declined to co-opt given the circumstances and sought other interested parties, and it took another few of months to settle the issue.

Under normal circumstances following a resignation I’m sure a suitable (to the council) candidate would have been put forward and co-opted on the next council meeting, all very well for the council but not so well for residents.

I’m also sure the council would insist that they have now co-opted a neutral candidate from a list of one, we would not agree but it would not be fair to the new councillor to go into those reasons at this time. My understanding is that only a month before there were three candidates expressing an interest, they suddenly all disappeared, we don’t know what happened.

3. The council had never developed any written policies, procedures or working practices. I was assured by the council in writing via email in 2010 that the document reproduced below (STANDING ORDERS) was the entirety of the council procedures that regulated and controlled council activity in all areas and circumstances that the council would reasonably expect to encounter. Anyone          running a private organisation with a dozen managers I’m sure would agree that a list of rules containing five short sentences to guide personnel would be criminally inadequate to manage that organisation and that disaster would always be waiting around the next corner.

Such a position could only result in serious inconsistency, contradiction and conflict in the decision making process. It would also mean that the organisation would inevitably be managed on an ad-hoc basis with personnel interpreting those rules according to the situation they found themselves in at any one time and consistency would not be possible.

During 2012 we persistently challenged the council and suggested they develop the systems required to manage the Parish in a more successful manner. I believe it was the August council meeting that the council voted to adopt the NALC Parish Council procedures. From that very moment to the present there has been no further mention of those Policies and Procedures that we are aware of.

It may be the vote was taken, the policies adopted, job done and we can now forget about it, as far as we are concerned if those procedures have been received and simply put aside somewhere, the whole process has been a complete waste of time and we are continuing on the path to almost certain             chaos.

Any private organisation that appointed a group of managers who knew nothing about their sector or business model to manage their business and then left them entirely to their own devices without any rules, scrutiny or guidance from the word go, they would not I’m sure expect to end up with any degree of success fifteen or twenty years later, I would suggest the only realistic expectation would be closure of the business at some point along the way.

4. Councillor training, when members of the public are first elected to a Parish Council it must be bewildering and new councillors must be left wondering, ‘what am I supposed to do now’. Without guidance and some level of training they may well remain in that state of mind just following the lead of anyone who will provide it. Obviously not what a councillors role is about so we suggested to the Parish Council a level of training for new councillors was essential and persisted in that view.

Again we had to push the issue because it is an issue that the council has never had to consider or pursue before now, when co-opted members were simply put into place and then expected to follow the lead of the chairman.

I believe most councillor’s, particularly new councillors have now attended a training course for Parish Councillors, that can only be helpful.

5. We have persistently criticized the council for it sheer lack of procedural control during council meetings for some time now and if you read the post headed ‘Preston Parish Council meeting 09/01/13, I acknowledged a vast improvement during that meeting, have we contributed to that improvement in some small way?

I do sincerely believe that without our dogged persistence none of the above would ever have happened and we would be much further from the straight and narrow than we are now.

It must be remembered that none of the above have ever been considered by the council until we sought to press them on the issues.

So, can we make a difference? Absolutely we can and we do!

How much more of a difference we could make as a larger group, it should not be residents leading the council, it should be the council leading residents!

As there is no specific mention in the ‘Standing Orders’ below relating to any financial items I presume the council does have separate procedures in place for all financial matters.

STANDING ORDERS

1.     Pecuniary interest/non pecuniary interest Members having such interest should declare the same at the meeting at which the matter is to be considered as soon as is practicable after the meeting commences, and should not speak or vote thereon.  (Minute 1657 10/11/99)

2.     Any other business Any other business will no longer be allowed. All matters to be raised shall be submitted to the clerk in writing for inclusion on the agenda.

3.     Tenders Three quotations shall be obtained for the supply of goods or specific work if it is envisaged that the cost will be more than £500.00. To exclude recurring items of expenditure, eg ongoing contracts, salaries, etc. which should be subject to such periodic review as the council considers appropriate, subject to other considerations such as continuity, standard of work etc.

4.     Resolutions No decision made by the council shall be raised for change for six months when the item must be placed on the agenda for the following meeting.

5.     Meetings All meetings must be concluded by 9.30pm and all remarks to be made through the chair with the correct protocol being used.

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Clerk to Preston Parish Council