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 The Website is at the very least 6 months out of date and much of the information necessary to residents is simply not available.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