AT LAST - and about time!

Lets give credit where it is due, I have been asking for over 5 years now for the Parish Council to deliver for the community a more open and accountable set of accounts which are not designed to just mean something to the accountant, and the people who produced them.

Well I can now announce that they have taken the very first step in this, the Parish Council have taken my advice and started to produce a set of accounts that is more open and readable to the average person on the street.

However as ever there is still the matter of "projects spend" if you look at these accounts it clearly sets out what has been spent on say the JPF Equipment, something they want you to know about because they are proud of that.

Sadly nowhere does it set out that they have spent over £13,000 on legal fees over the last few years, something they are not so proud about. A lot of the terminology is still "jargon" like "Concurrent Function" It is also a little confusing as to the matter of if all expenditure or if all income sits in brackets. Finally it sets out a massive move of funds from the reserve not just to pay for the JPF equipment but to pay for overheads and wages and maintenance. This cash withdrawal is only possible because of the previous councils ability to save cash.

This is a good start and should be commended, as being immeasurably more open and accountable than previous poor efforts. It has to be said, nobody knows why it has taken over 5 years to this September for this information to be produced, but now it has, it needs refining and opening up more so ordinary non accounting people can understand the "Narrative" of the document and the decisions that the council has made.

Also worth noting the massive increase in projected income from £86K this year to a projected £175K next year. Remember this in the main is a local TAX, everyone in our community is putting their hard earned cash into this pot, you have a right to be consulted on how it is spent, and a right to have an input into what projects it is spent on. The day of the great and the good and the staff having their pet projects delivered with other peoples cash is over.

Wages UP! Latest Update, up by another £6692

Now I can see why they Parish Council has been so reluctant to release the information about the increase in administration costs to the community. In the blog below you will see that in the Annual Accounts of 2015, which are on the Parish Website the cost of wages overall for the Parish Council was

 £38,194

This is now due to be increased in one year with all allied costs included to....

£44,886     an increase of £6692

The letter I received quoted this as an explanation....

"Staffing costs for 2016/17 as agreed in the budget set in December 2015 is £44,8860.00. This figure includes costs for Salaries, PAYE, National Insurance, Pension Fund, Payroll, Training and Seminars. Any variation of this figure will be need to be discussed at the Finance Committee in November and passed to the Full Council for conformation.

The recommendation from NALC/SLCC was to follow the Local Government pay award of 1% increase in salaries in each of the years 2016/17 and 2017/18. The Parish Council accepted this recommendation at its meeting in June 2016."

End Quote.

So I may be wrong but it seems that a 1% increase in pay award, in cash terms results in a 17% to the tax payer. Now I may be wrong here but the facts are plain, the old rate was £38,194, the increase is £6692, which is a 17.5% increase by my reckoning.

The wages cost in 2009 was £18,886, and now it is £44,886, an Annual increase of £26,000 over the period of Austerity.

Now again let me state clearly, I have no problem in principle with good wages for a job. However this increase on the wages cost for the running of the Parish Council, I would expect a commensurate increase in performance and efficiency as well as a significant upgrade in the way the Parish Council communicates with the public. The bare minimum of posting notices on the notice boards is no longer good enough, the smoke and mirrors of administration is no longer acceptable. Our community is paying an extra 125% in local tax, with an extra 500+ new people moving into the community, all paying the local tax, delivered by the poor "Save the Haywoods" campaigns which never saved the Haywoods from anything at all.

I say to everyone in Colwich and the Haywoods, this is your cash, your council, it is time for a change, a change of leadership, a change of style of administration, we should all be demanding open accountable accessible communication. I will set out on this blog over the coming months exactly how this can easily be achieved. We are paying for it, as a community we deserve the best, we should not be settling for the lowest bar possible within the legal framework, we should be not just aiming but achieving the HIGHEST levels of communication with the community the Parish Council serves.

I believe our Parish Council CAN be awarded the GOLD standard for Parish Councils and when and IF I am re-elected at the next elections I will make it my business to ensure that Colwich parish Council becomes a Gold standard council.

Quality Gold Status 

The Quality Gold Award demonstrates that a council is at the forefront of best practice and achieves excellence in governance, community leadership and council development. Quality Gold councils provide leadership for their communities, bring people together, and have excellent business planning processes, ensuring value for money as well as constantly seeking new innovations and opportunities to improve. 






This is the story that just runs and runs, I have now received a reply from the Parish Council regarding my freedom of information request and I can now tell you how much the pay rise will be to the tax payer in the next couple of years..............

Oh if it were only that simple......this next bit is priceless!!!

They are sending the information in the POST!!, the extra cost of a stamp, envelope, paper and the time it has taken to write the letter.

Now that in itself is just designed to frustrate me getting hold of the information quicker, BUT THERE IS MORE!!!

Now I have been banned from sending my requests addressed to MR CLERK, as this person "In the Authority" does not exist!! and failure to send the request to a specific person could result in a delay in any responses to a legal request for information.

You just could not make it up, they are the only people in the office!!

They sit in the office each day, they are the Clerks to the Parish Council, they are as I believe both men, so the preface of MR is entirely right, they are Clerks to the council so using their title is not unusual, especially as I have no idea who will receive the request........it is just priceless, and this is what we are paying for.

The response in full set out below was authorised by the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Parish Council Andy Cooper and Adam Billingsley, it will be interesting to see the draft agenda which will be issued soon to see what other important issues they have prioritised for this months meeting.

Dear Mr Pearce,

A hard copy of the response sent on 19th August has been sent by post.

For future reference: there is no-one in the Authority known as 'Mr Clerk'. Should you wish to submit future Freedom Of Information, or any other, requests then might I suggest you address these requests to a known member of the Authority's staff i.e. to either my 'Rev Mr Lennon' as the Parish Clerk or to my deputy 'Mr Egan'. Failure to do so might result in a delay in answering your request(s).

Rev Mr Michael Lennon, MILCM
Clerk to Colwich Parish Council
The Parish Centre,
St Mary's Road
Little Haywood
ST18 0TX

01889 882665

clerk@Colwich.staffslc.gov.uk

www.colwich.info

If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify Colwich Parish Council and then delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately. This e-mail and its attachments are confidential and may contain privileged information, if you are not the intended recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this e-mail or attachments is strictly prohibited. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken, no guarantee is given that it is free from any virus and Colwich Parish Council accepts no liability or responsibility for such viruses. This e--mail is not intended nor should it be taken to create any legal relations, contractual or otherwise.



Well here we go again, I asked a simple question of the Parish Council who, as set out in the Blog below have already recently raised the cost of wages to the local public purse by a whopping 50% during a recession. They have just voted through a further 2 years of increases to this, I have no idea what this further percentage this is, or how much the total is. So I sent a simple Freedom of Information request to find out so everyone is aware of the extra planned cost. I received an email with an attachment, the attachment would not open. I asked for the information to be re-sent, nothing not an acknowledgement of my request, nothing, and this perfectly sets out what we are paying for, this is what the pay rise is for, for the administration to send another email I have had to ask twice and still no answer. with the 125% increase in local taxes, the over 50% increase in total wages cost with more planned, our community deserves better administration and better open accountable communication. So I am no further in letting you know what they are spending because they are refusing to re-send the information. I have already had to wait over the 20 days for a FOI request, this is YOUR cash they are spending, YOUR money that remains un accounted for, YOUR council refusing to open their accounts to simple local scrutiny, YOUR council that needs to become routinely more open and accountable. IF you are reading this and you are ON THE COUNCIL, then all you have to do is to send a quick email to the clerk and ask them why they are not communicating with the public, why they are ignoring legitimate requests for information. I will post an update as soon as I receive one.......not holding my breath, so I will re-send a formal Freedom of information request, it seems the only way to get the information out of this shady council.

I will over the coming months and years be looking into and revealing facts about how the communities money has been spent over the years. It would be nice if all I had to do was to email the council and ask, but sadly this information has to be asked for as a freedom of information request as much of what happens in the council runs through a filter of smoke and mirrors.

Now there are those who will say that this type of scrutiny is bullying and offensive and that I am picking on the parish council. I say this is democracy in action, the people keeping the executive accountable to the community or constituency they serve. The answer to shutting me up is simple, change the council to be more open accountable visible and transparent, if this is done I will have nothing to chat about with you, will I. So those who attack me for saying these things, I say get behind the closed doors of the council and start changing it, spend your time resolving the issues, rather than supporting the status quo which isn't good enough any more.

Lets look at a simple example, how much it costs to run the council, now we are told it is £93,000 quite a sum really. Lets think for a while.........do we get value for money for that sum?

This cash comes directly from our local community collective wallets

Do you feel that the community has changed in the last 5 years?

Do you think that the burdens on the Parish Council have vastly increased in the last 5 years?

Do you look around you and see the massive added value in the community of spending that £93,000?, do you know what the cash is spent on? do you have any idea how it came to be such a large amount?

If you look on the Parish Website you will see under the section Marked "Other Documents" a long list of documents mostly historical.

If you look at the Annual Report of 2009, you will see that the cost of "wages pensions etc." was £18,886, if you then open the Annual Report for this year 2015 you will see this jump to a massive...


£38,194 that is an ongoing annual increase of £19,308 a 50.5% increase in salary costs. During a recession, and at a time of austerity. All other councils have been forced into cutting services and reducing staffing during this time. 

If you read the recent full council minutes you will see that this cost has just been agreed to be increased again this year and next. I am waiting for confirmation from the council of what exactly the uplift is in cash terms.

Let me also be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong in wages going up, I will leave you to judge if this raise is acceptable, but any business or organisation must be able to point to how that added cost has benefited the community it needs to be seen and visible. This is not a rant, this is just right. When people accuse me of having a chip on my shoulder it is because I keep uncovering facts like these. So lets be clear I am not having ago at the recipients of the wages they are employees of the council they just receive what they are given. Here are the wages cost of a number of other local parish councils, with councils of a comparable size with comparable work to do.

Hixon total cost for this year £9,159
Haughton total costs for this year. £5,082
Eccleshall total costs this year £28,555
Barlaston £15,580

So it is right to ask the question with a £19,308 a Year increase in just 5 years what value add is the community getting for that significant investment of local tax, remember those wages are funded ONLY from us here in the community. Ask yourself want has radically changed in just 5 years in our community that warrants this need for extra expense. This is not an issue for the Clerk he is just doing his job, this is an issue quite clearly and directly for the Management and Organisation of the Parish Council, Directly the Chairman and the Vice Chairman who are directly responsible for the operational management of the council.

I started asking for better efficiency, better up to date communication, better administration, and I was blocked at every turn

So when I am asking the council why are the minutes of the meetings are not on the website, and I get the answer they are in the window come and look, I get more than a little frustrated that for this increase we are receiving a minimum standard of communication from the council.

All entirely within the "Quoted Rules" of "Arnold Baker" but all entirely the minimum that is required by law. To me that shows a contempt for the community and the people who pay for those increases. Our community is not some backwater, yes we have a few of the older generation not on the internet or facebook but in general the community is well connected.

In previous Parish councils the level of communication was much better. The website was always updated promptly, what was going on in the village advertised accordingly, minutes from meetings published within days of the meeting not months.

Am I really asking for too much? asking for the website that WE pay for to be regularly updated, for the minutes of meetings to be set out in clear English, agendas to be published with background notes for those not attending to read. Is it too much for the Clerks report to be published so we can see what has been achieved. Is it really too much to have the meetings recorded so we can all see how decisions are made. Is it too much to ask how tenders are done, who is on the tender process and why. I think not, we are entitled to know what is being done in our name and with our cash.

 Its all about open accountable transparent leadership. The Clerks office will do what the council tells it to, so this is not an issue for the clerks office it is the clear "Choice" of the leadership of the council.

I will over time be scrutinising the accounts and looking at what the spending criteria has been over the last 5 years and making sure that a NEW method of accounting is developed that will allow the public easy access to the accounts in a meaningful way. It is a simple process not complicated at all.

Anyone in business will know that to manage the finances of the business you have a detailed spreadsheet of income and costs. Where regular costs are incurred they are called fixed costs and where spot purchases are required or where cost vary they are called variable costs. Each cost to the business has a named line item with a short explanation at the front to identify it, with a cost code attached. The cost code is the way you allocate various costs to a single project, thus producing a simple end of project cost for all the projects in the year. The cost of every project should be published, and a comprehensive breakdown of expenditure should be published to allow the public to see what their cash is being spent on.

An example, and to be fair I would go much further, can be found on the Hixon website http://hixon.gov.uk/Finance/spreadsheet This set out clearly what has been spent and where.

So in the age of Austerity I have asked the Parish Council as a start to tell me how much cash has been spent on Legal Fees for ANY projects in this council and the last, specifically asking what project the legal fee was for and a breakdown of fees per project, I will publish the results here on this blog. This is a freedom of information request, so I have to wait until mid august for the information to be sent. I hope it will be in a form that will be easy for you to digest.

Remember this is YOUR cash this is the money YOU PAY OUT OF YOUR PURSE's and WALLETS EVERY YEAR.

Paid but nowhere to be seen! USELESS!

Where is Cllr Len Bloomer? he is the very long standing member of the great and the good who tell us how to live and spend all our money raised from local taxes.

Yes he is the one who said

" he is fed up of the public sending him concerned letters about HS2" saying that the County Council is doing nothing.

Having spoken to his bosses, it turned out that like many other councils, they are actually and factually doing nothing......nothing above the very minimum required by law.

The very same Len Bloomer who said that the reason that the County Council has no money for communities, was that there was too many children in care, too many vulnerable people needing help.

He completely forgot to mention the millions spent on business parks, the millions spent on profits for the businesses that have taken over public services they have outsourced. Oh yes and the new Jag for the Chief Executive while slashing bus services in the county.

Cllr Bloomer over the last 5 years from the public purse has been paid £49,371

In the last 2 years, that's 24 months Cllr Bloomer has attended Colwich Parish Council Meetings just twice

On both of those occasions he didn't have anything to say, apart from there is no money and you are not getting anything from the County Council. He could have sent someone else along, sent a report of what he was doing, most months we struggle to get an apology for not attending.

Question? Are we getting anywhere near value for money for the cash the good people of Staffordshire are paying out.

Question? Just what have the County Council done for our community in recent years? well I have to tell you I have looked and over the last 5 years I am really struggling to find ONE THING. Yet this councillor is returned by this community year on year, just because he always has been.

I say that the problem this Cllr is a "Has Been" he definitely is no longer any good for this community.

The local ruling elite are now so used to being elected they are now taking it all for granted, they don't have to turn up for meetings, dont have to do anything in the community, just send a few leaflets around at election time and they just get re-elected and for what? doing absolutely nothing to help this community.

Now for those of you who will say this is just a left wing rant, remember I am not saying this about Cllr Perkins Conservative, who attends regularly  and I am on record of thanking him for the hard work he does. I am not saying this about Jeremy Lefroy MP Conservative who attends all his surgeries and is on record of supporting many community projects not least the recent football pitch issue at Shugborough.

Cllr Len Bloomer has become distant arrogant and completely useless to the community, its time for him to go, he just takes the money and does nothing for us here in the Haywoods. Yet he relies on our votes to get elected.

Its time for a change!