"Proper Channels"

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5. Proper Channels.

During the council meeting on 16/08/13 there was a comment from one council member who stated the issues raised here should be directed through the ‘proper channels’ or government bodies that deal with the issues, for that member’s clarification we will outline the steps we have taken.

The parish council has been approached as the “proper channel” in the first instance on all issues listed on this blog without exception, we have invariably had those approaches ignored by the council or simply being told “the matter is closed”. There comes a point when you have to accept that it’s futile trying to be reasonable with people who brush you aside so readily.

After a number of snubs from the council and its refusal to even consider the issue, one of our members made two complaints to the Standards Committee, which is a ‘proper channel’, both complaints related to the honesty of parish councillors. The first one was considered on its merits and the Standards Committee found that a breach of the Code of Conduct for Councillors had not taken place. Our member didn’t agree with the deliberation but the Standards Committee made their decision having considered all the facts relevant to the complaint and therefore our member accepted that decision, which was the end of the matter.

The second complaint was determined on false statements submitted by Preston Parish Councillors and therefore the final decision of the Standards Committee was fundamentally flawed, the Committee had been deliberately misled by those parish councillors.

By submitting false statements those councillors are suggesting that the complainant simply thought up the complaint from the imagination of his own mind and made the complaint maliciously. That strongly suggests that the complainant was lying in order to have unwarranted disciplinary action taken against an innocent councillor.

That being the case the complainant, should the need arise, will never again be able to submit a genuine complaint without being tarnished with the suggestion of that alleged dishonesty. In addition to that, the Chairman and vice chairman of the parish council at the time must have had the same aberration independently of the complainant as they also submitted statements which confirmed the complainants view and other council members agreed the incident did in fact take place much as described in the complaint and submitted statements to that effect.

Following a request that ERYC review their deliberation on the grounds of dishonest statements (another ‘proper channel’) that was rejected out of hand. At this point we have pretty well come to the end of the road as far as “proper channels” are concerned but we will continue to push the issue until someone higher up the ladder looks into the matter or it is resolved by the parish council in discussion with the complainant.

Following the decision of the Standards Committee an additional number of councillors wrote to the Monitoring Officer of ERYC confirming the flawed decision and requested it be looked at again and investigated (yet another ‘proper channel’), their requests were also refused.

Parish Council’s are not covered by the “Local Government Ombudsman” (a review of the legislation is currently being considered, if Parish Councils are transferred to the jurisdiction of the Local Government Ombudsman we will immediately submit a case to them) so we are unable to take that step, we are pretty well at the end of the line as far as “proper channels” are concerned.

With regard to the councils refusal to make available public information on many occasions we have to-date not followed that up with a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). We now intend to correct that and should the council again fail to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, all failures will be referred to the ICO at the earliest appropriate opportunity. Any deliberations the ICO may make will be posted on this site at the relevant time.

It would therefore appear to be the case that if you have a complaint against a parish council or an innocent query you can be constantly ignored and in the end you will get tired of trying and you will go away leaving the parish council in peace to repeat the process time after time on any other unsuspecting resident who complains in the future or, puts forward an innocent query. The parish council have operated in this way for many years, we want that to stop right here so we will not be going away any time soon.

In saying we should go through the appropriate ‘government channels’ that member can only be suggesting that we take a complaint regarding the unlawful use of public funds to the Audit Commission or District Auditor. That member has clearly learned nothing about the previous Audit but is fully aware of the consequences of such action, and the potential financial cost to the parish, is that member not concerned about the financial cost? Does the member think the parish is so cash rich we have nothing better to spend it on except even more unnecessary Audits, effectively transferring residents money into the profit account of a private accounting firm?

What should happen and what any responsible parish council would do is,

1. On becoming aware of such an issue the council would take proactive steps to address it.

2. Discuss the reasons for the residents concern and give a full explanation why the resident is mistaken in his/her suspicion, if that is the case.

3. Cover the details and outcome publically during the next available council meeting.

4. Document the details in council minutes as a permanent record of their actions.

The council will then have taken all reasonable steps to address the issue and can be shown to have displayed ‘due diligence’ in protecting the assets of the parish and its residents. If the resident then went ahead in forwarding a complaint to the audit commission it would arguably be beyond the councils control and therefore could be argued that any loss is down to a malicious complaint by a disgruntled resident.

What a council should never do is refuse to discuss such issues with residents and ignore any requests for the relevant information as that demonstrates a council’s lack of engagement, openness and transparency and can only propagate further mistrust and suspicion.

Since it has been over two and a half years since such an audit it is almost certain that an audit would be ordered by the District Auditor because of the seriousness of the allegation, any audit will represent a financial loss to the parish of up to circa. £10,000. To suggest we take our complaint to the Audit Commission is being reckless in the extreme with resident’s money when the parish council has the information to resolve the issue quickly and without any additional cost to the parish or residents.

For a parish council to not respond for 3 years to a resident’s belief that public funds have been spent illegally and then simply tell those residents to complain to the District Auditor is appallingly bad management of public funds. 

We are currently making contact with the Audit Commission to clarify the position on Auditors looking into a specific incident as an isolated item (a "proper channel"), when that information is received and we have had time to digest it we will reconsider our options, we have not yet ruled out a complaint to the Audit Commission.

If the parish council refuse to make public documents available which would easily and quickly resolve this matter it should put out a public statement to that effect and if the view of the parish council is that we should take the matter to the Audit Commission knowing the potential cost to public funds they should include such advice clearly in a public statement, we will then reconsider our position.

There is just a couple of parish council failures we must remember’

1. The parish council has never uttered a single word in denial or explanation for the omission.

2. The council has the ability to clear the matter up with the issue of one agenda and one set of minutes which should take no more than 30 Mins, to date it has refused to do so.

3. The parish council has never responded to the enquiring resident to explain why the resident is wrong in his belief, if that is the case.

The fault lies with the parish council and not with residents.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish we will post on your experience without your identity being released, or not post anything if you simply want to share your experience it’s entirely up to you. We would love to hear your story, your not alone, there are a number of us, let us compare notes and grow as a group.