Role of the Parish Clerk

ROLE OF THE PARISH CLERK

Written for the blog by a Preston Resident.

It is not our intention to be critical of the Parish Clerk, he is an employee of the council and as such follows the instructions of the council as a body, if the clerk does stray into an area which he should not it is the responsibility of the council as a body to primarily prevent it happening and secondly to correct the position when it does happen.

This information is meant for readers who may not be familiar with the roles of council personnel, I know from my own experience just a couple of years ago just how bewildering it can be, it is meant to be helpful. Although I use the term ‘he’ when referring to the clerk it could just as easily be a she.

When I refer to any type of legal duty it is required by the laws that govern our Local Authorities, it would be too lengthy to include all references so they have been left out. If any reader wishes to know the specific legal requirements of any item please contact me and I will if possible happily give that information to you.

Outline.

The Parish Clerk as the executive officer for the council plays an important role in the life and workings of the Authority.

The clerk is employed by the council under section 112 (1) of the Local Government Act 1972, to provide administrative support for the council’s activities. Any other staff, although employed by the council, answer to the clerk who is their manager and he is responsible for their performance. The council in turn is responsible as a body for the clerk’s performance.

The clerk’s primary responsibility is to advise the council on whether its decisions are lawful and to recommend ways in which decisions can be implemented. To help with this, a clerk can be asked to research topics of concern to the council and provide unbiased information to help the council make appropriate choices. The clerk is required to carry out the instructions of the council even if he disagrees with those instructions.

The clerk has a wide range of other responsibilities, which are normally set out in his job description. The clerk must recognize that the council is responsible for all decisions and that he takes instructions from the council as a body, he is not answerable to any individual councillor, not even the chairman.

The council must be confident that the clerk is, at all times, independent, objective and professional.

‘Proper Officer’ is a title used in statute, in Town and Parish Councils the ‘Proper Officer’ is normally the clerk.

A typical job description of a Parish Clerk to a small Parish Council.

The appointment of a Parish Clerk is required by law for all Parish Councils, often known as ‘The Proper Officer’ and as such is under a statutory duty to carry out all the functions, and in particular to serve or issue all the notifications required by law. The clerk is fully responsible for ensuring that the instructions of the Council in connection with its function as a Local Authority are carried out.

The clerk is expected to advise the council on and assist in the formation of, overall policies to be followed in respect of the authorities activities and in particular to produce all the information required for making effective decisions and to implement all decisions of the council.

The clerk will be directly accountable to the council for the effective management of all its resources and will report to them as and when required. The Clerk will be the Responsible Financial Officer and be responsible for all financial records of the Council and the careful administration of its finances.

Specific Responsibilities

To ensure that statutory and other provisions governing or affecting the running of the Council are observed.

To monitor and balance the Council’s accounts and prepare records for audit purposes and VAT.

To ensure that the Council’s obligations for Risk Assessment are properly met.

To prepare, in consultation with appropriate members, agendas for meetings of the Council and Committees. To attend such meetings and be responsible for minutes for approval.

To attend all meetings of the Council and all meetings of its committees and sub-committees, other than where such duties have been delegated to another Officer.

To receive correspondence and documents on behalf of the Council and to deal with or bring such items to the attention of the Council. To issue correspondence as a result of instructions, or the known policy of, the Council.

To receive and report on invoices for goods and services to be paid for by the Council and to ensure such accounts are met.  To issue invoices on behalf of the Council for goods and services and to ensure payment is received.

To study reports and other data on activities of the Council and on matters bearing on those activities.  Where appropriate, to discuss such matters with administrators and specialists in particular fields and to produce reports for circulation and discussion by the Council.

To draw up, on his own initiative and as a result of suggestions by Councillors, proposals for consideration by the Council and to advise on the practicability and likely effects of specific courses of action.

To supervise any other members of staff, as their line manager in keeping with the policies of the Council and to undertake all necessary activities in connection with the management of salaries, conditions of employment and work of other staff.

To monitor the implemented policies of the Council to ensure they are achieving the desired result and where appropriate suggest modifications.

To complete any other tasks the Council may reasonably require and to act as the representative of the Council as required.

To issue notices and prepare agendas and minutes for the Annual Parish Assembly, to attend the Assembly and to implement the decisions made at the Assembly as agreed by the Council.

The clerk’s job should be a full one even in a small parish council like Preston, what the clerk must or should do is normally clearly defined in his Employment Contract and Job Description. What is often not clearly defined is what the clerk must or should not do in practice, this leads to ambiguity and mistakes in the day to day running of the council and in particular participation during meetings.

Key points for the role of parish clerk.

To serve or issue all the notifications required by law

The clerk must be independent and unbiased.

To ensure that statutory and other provisions governing or affecting the running of the Council are observed.

The council as a body is responsible for the performance of the clerk.

The council has failed in its responsibility in the following areas.

Allowing the clerk to post notices of the dates and agenda of council meetings late and not giving the minimum 3 clear days notice required by law. This in effect may result in any such council meeting being unlawfully convened and as such has no legal authority to conduct any council business.

If an unlawful meeting is convened and business conducted, any decisions taken will not be valid or legally binding. This could present a huge administrative disruption to the council and parish.

The 3 days minimum notice is stipulated to give both councillors and members of the public time to absorb items on the agenda and take steps to prepare whatever information they may need in order to understand all items on the agenda and to support their views and arguments during any debate. If the notice and agenda is posted 1 or 2 days before the meeting it is not considered sufficient time for a person to adequately prepare the information they need. Good councils normally aim to have the notice posted 5 to 7 days before the meeting in order to not fall fowl of any bank holiday periods resulting in the need to cancel meetings and reschedule them to meet the required minimum notice period. Without such a minimum period you would I am sure, get some councils posting notices while actually on the way to the meeting.

This is a most basic and fundamental duty that the council fails to enforce because it is easier to leave it to someone else than have to take the trouble of dealing with it. The habit of posting notices late I’m sure was established during the previous administration when the council had managed to ensure there was little or no public interest in their activities and they could do pretty well as they pleased and nobody would notice or care. This is one of those areas where the new council should have taken action, I have brought this to the attention of council on more than one occasion, the council clearly chose to ignore that alarm. I’m sure they’ll deal with it now.

Because notices have been posted late, I believe we now have a situation where a member of the public sits on the council taking part in council meetings, debates and deliberations, voting on issues that effect the parish which brings all subsequent meetings into question. All this because the council couldn’t be bothered to post a simple notice in proper time.

Although meeting dates are sometimes given on a council’s website, this does not meet the legal requirement for posting such notices. The specific legal requirement is for such notices to be ‘posted in a prominent location within the parish’, in the case of Preston that is two notice boards in North and South Preston. If the council are suggesting that a notice on a website satisfies the requirement for posting the notice, why put it in the notice board in the first place, in fact, why have we spend so much public money on very expensive notice boards?

To issue such notices by email to councillors does not meet the legal requirement. The specific requirement is that any such notices shall be delivered by hand or postal system, once handed over or placed in the postal system it is legally deemed to have been served. There is also a legal definition that clarifies how ‘3 clear days notice must be calculated.

The council allows the clerk to go a long way beyond the role permitted by law during council meetings. The clerk is an employee of the council not an elected member, as such he is not required to declare personal interests in the ‘Register of interests’ as all elected and co-opted members of the council are required to do. As an employee of the council he is barred by law from holding such office, he is required to be present at all council meetings to record minutes and decisions of the council and advise, as and when requested to do so by the chairman, on matters of law, other than that he is a member of the public!

During Preston Parish Council meetings the clerk will as a matter of course play a significant role in council discussions and often leads the council as to which way it should vote, which legally invalidates that vote. It is the chairman who is responsible for managing the meeting and ensuring that all rules governing those meetings are adhered to in an orderly fashion.

Whilst I agree that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the clerk spending a number of weeks abroad on holiday with one of those longer serving councillors, it does on the face of it raise questions on the clerk’s independence. I say this because a complaint to the Standards Committee regarding the councillor in question will most likely have resulted in the Monitoring Officer having contact with the parish clerk seeking clarification of the incident from his perspective, given the circumstances we cannot have confidence in that perspective being entirely accurate or unbiased.

One aspect of this is that no reference of the incident is documented in minutes so it was never recorded by the clerk (his job if you remember), if I had so aggressively abused a councillor I’m sure it would have been well documented in council minutes! And I would have been promptly barred from the meeting.

All things considered it would appear the council is operated in a haphazard and sloppy manner with little clear direction or control, in any outside organisation this would be attributed to a lack of leadership.

Elements of this posting will be dealt with in more detail at a later date.