PRESTON PARISH MEETING 20 MAY 2015.

THE PARISH MEETING 20 MAY 2015.

What can I say, an unmitigated disaster, again! This has happened every year for at least the last decade!!  And each time the council regurgitate the usual excuse of ‘it was on the Notice Board so there’s nothing more we can do”.

I was unable to attend due to illness but I am reliably informed there was just 1 resident who attended, 2 councillors and parish clerk. The Parish Council won’t bat an eye at that or give it a second thought. The fact is this was the Annual Parish Meeting for residents and it’s the legal duty of the council to ensure it takes place within a specified period. I would have thought the council also had a responsibility to ensure its success but it would appear the council takes every possible step to ensure the meeting takes place in name only and beyond that it is totally ineffective!

The facts are that I pushed for the Parish Meeting to be planned for 6 months ahead of the date of the meeting and I was arguing that case from May 2014. I had 2 other councillors who were willing to join me in forming a committee with some residents and planning for the meeting and making arrangements to engage with residents to try and make the meeting a success. We had plans for Posters, leaflet drops and suggested agenda items, we planned to have hot and cold refreshments available, we were even prepared to cover the cost of promoting the meeting out of our own pockets, that’s how important we believed it to be.

 The council did as far as I recall agree to put plans in place to make the meeting a success, as is often the case the matter was never mentioned again and nothing was actioned, even though the whole council agreed to take it forward, following the meeting someone decided to bin it and as usual that was the end of it, its happened time after time!

There are some very important matters and issues not least of all financial issues that residents need to be aware of and need to have the opportunity to discuss and debate in public because the issues potentially effect every household in the village. It does appear the council or those few people controlling the council have no wish for residents to be aware of these issues and will take almost any steps to prevent engagement with residents.

There are lots of local issues that I would imagine are of interest to residents and issues they would like to see discussed at an official level and in cases action taken, they include, Cemetery, Play Park, Foot Paths, Traffic and Parking, Dog Fowling, Preston Playing Fields, Jubilee Trees, Emergency Plan, allotments etc. etc., the list just goes on.

It really is time residents had their say, there are just a couple of people who are denying all other residents the opportunity to have their say, that needs to change!

UNDER PERFORMANCE IN RETURN FOR OVERPAYMENT.

PRESTON PARISH COUNCIL

I’ve just checked the Parish Council Website to see who our new councillors are, I should have known better!  This I think is pretty disgusting, we pay a clerk about 50% of the council’s entire income [Precept] for 12 hours work per week and part of the job is to update the Council Website as a source of information for residents. Seven councillors were elected in April [Unopposed] and I understand some have been co-opted since but they are not listed on the council Website.  So why am I and others who are no longer councillors still listed as councillors almost 2 months after we stood down?  I would like my name removing from that site! The Website is at the very least 6 months out of date and much of the information necessary to residents is simply not available.

We have Burstwick  Council seeking a new clerk on a NJC Spinal Count of 15 to 19 points [pay scale] subject to having or working to obtain the CiLCA Clerk qualification. This I understand is a very similar council profile to Preston in terms of Population and income according to the scales complied by NALC and SLCC in conjunction with NJC.

We then have Hedon seeking a new clerk on an NJC Spinal Count of 33 to 35 points, dependent on experience and qualifications, CiLCA qualification I believe is required. Hedon is probably 10 times the size of Preston in terms of income and expenditure [the last time I checked and if I remember correctly, I believe Hedon had a precept income of something like £165,000], probably has more than twice the population and I believe has one less councillor than Preston [from memory].

We then have Preston with a population of about 3,300 and an annual income of £20,000 [precept], about £2,000 of ancillary income and a rapidly dwindling reserve. This is were it goes horribly wrong because we have a clerk on a NJC Spinal Count of 26 points. The pay for our Parish Clerk is a long, long way ahead of Burstwick’s, 11 spinal points ahead and snapping at the heels of Hedon clerks pay scale. The Preston clerk’s pay puts him into the LC2 range [Hedon Clerks pay group] and there is absolutely nothing in the Preston Council profile that remotely warrants that level of pay.  

Everything I have received from Preston Council Office while a member of the council from work schedules to budget forecasts have been amateurish in the extreme and produced almost on the back of a fag packet and without any thought or consideration. When I questioned inconsistencies in a working schedule produced by the council office neither the Chairman or clerk had any idea of what I was talking about, even though I was actually quoting the schedule they had issued just days before, needless to say they refused to discuss it during later meetings!

Despite asking more than once I have never been informed of the relevant qualifications the clerk holds. I can only conclude the clerk for Preston is not qualified to do the job, so why do we pay such a princely wage? Especially when the clerk had no idea of what the quorum is for the council he works for?

While on the council I questioned the issue of the clerk’s salary scale and qualifications on a number of occasions but never got any answers. The issue was never put before the council to decide, it was always decided by someone else, I don’t know who, but the issue does need to be discussed openly and residents need to be closely involved in the discussion, after all this is public money that is being wasted sorry, spent.

As far as I was able to ascertain and confirmed by the Chairman, there are no records of the clerk ever being assessed for the position he now holds, no records exist of the process used to evaluate the level of pay inline with any official guide lines [NALC, SLCC or NJC] and no records exist that would indicate the clerks qualification to hold the post. There are no records that indicate the clerk has undergone any kind of performance review or appraisal during his 15 years in post.    

So I can only draw my own conclusion, it’s a remnant of the cosy rouges club that constituted the Parish Council prior to 2011.

Ken Lyons