"So what" I hear you say
Whats on the agenda? god knows it could be anything, so why does the Parish Council who have recently raised the cost of running the council by over £6000 still insist on the barest minimum when it comes to communicating with the public, I will never understand.
Now under the Local Government act 1972, the barest minimum to remain legally correct is to post the agenda 3 days prior to the meeting on the Parish Noticeboard.
For those of us who have a diary, that is not exactly helpful to anyone trying to plan their week. A young mum who maybe want to attend may have to arrange child care. A small businessman would have diarise their time to make sure they leave work on time to get things done.
So this means you will have no idea whatever what the dates of future meetings are, unless that is you look at the parish notice boards to find out. However the meeting that you may want to go to may not be on the board. So you will have to go down to the notice board every day until the notice is placed.
Now we are told that a large lump sum of cash is going to be spent on the delivery of a new "Parish Website", well all I can say is that currently minutes of meetings and agendas are routinely not posted for months after a meeting has taken place ensuring that only the clerk and the councillors have any idea of what is going on.
A change in standing orders will be required to establish the following new rules which should become standard practice.
1. Draft Minutes of meetings will be posted within 2 days of the meeting closing
2. Draft agendas for all meetings should also be posted online 3 days prior to the meeting taking place.
3. All meeting notices should be routinely placed on the social media pages for the villages ensuring that over 3000 local people get direct access to the agendas and minutes directly in their email boxes.
I also propose that the limited nature of the Parish noticeboards mean that many of the notices have to be truncated to make room for them all. All the noticeboards should be replaced by much larger boards capable of homing a more detailed set of notices.
The only way the local people have assessing what is being achieved on any subject at the moment is being in the meeting and listening to the section called "Clerks Report". This section outlines what progress has been made on many subjects. However on the minutes of the meeting it merely says "The clerks report was noted" but ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING about what was in it.
It is currently deemed that the report is confidential.....absolute fiddlesticks!!
Many of the "Gold Standard" Parish Councils who pay much less for their services regularly every month publish what progress has been made by the council on various issues. It is just this council and the management who feel that it is not a good idea for local people to know what's going on.
If they really believe the "Save the Haywoods" ideology is dead then they would embrace open accountable transparent working, I'm not holding my breath.
So I am suggesting to the council this month that they consider a "White Paper" system of working. When a new piece of activity is proposed it is put in the form of a white paper, with a clear narrative explaining the reasons why the activity is required, with no jargon, what it will cost, how long the task will take etc. and importantly who is owning the project. This means that there will be a document produced which is titled and everyone will know what is required. As progress is made the document is added to, if the borough council or county council is contacted etc this is evidenced in full. The key thing here is that the documents are published for everyone to see. Then everyone can see progress, everyone can see the latest activity. The file then becomes a working document which is electronic, which does not require a paper file. Access to everyone and the councillors means they can keep abreast of progress as soon as it happens not having to wait for months for the next potential meeting.
This is what the Parish Council could deliver if they wanted to, we will have to wait and see if they do.
Not on this months agenda
Burial Ground
Results of the Employment meeting for potential new staff
Explanation of how a 1% pay rise results in a 17% cash increase in costs
106 Cash none being spent in the Haywoods
The Legal Case - no update or how much more cash this is costing
5 years too late.....a position on HS2.......probably head up collective arse.
Watch this space
