Who is the Monitoring Officer/Body for Parish Clerks

Question

If a Complaint about repeated threats of vexatious and habitual correspondence by a Parish Clerk when it has been necessary to contact them again due to a nil or incomplete response is not upheld by the Chair, who can I refer the matter to, eg monitoring body?  I responded that I was not happy with the Chair's decision as many issues in my complaint were not addressed. Some were them addressed but requests for copies of correspondence in a FoI request were refused as they had been deleted.. they related to a donation to the Parish accepted and actioned outside of a formal meeting (my previous question)

Answer 1

The Clerk is the employee of the council and so the Monitoring Officer will not deal with a complaint against them.  You could raise a complaint to the Monitoring Officer against the whole council.

I am not sure what you expected to receive if the information you requested had been deleted...?

Comments

I understand that so your only recourse about actions of a Clerk including active removal and reporting of social media posts (to local community groups including a gardening group responsible to the Parish Council) sharing the donation accepted of planters as inappropriate and inaccurate is to the Council Chair?

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Clerk will do Introduction to Local Council Administration (ILCA), Certificate in Local Council Administration (CILCA)  or even the Degree Course. The options are laid out in the standard NALC Clerks template contract. CILCA is the main qualification expected for a professional clerk.
This is different to his appraisal.
You can report the actions to the staffing committee if there is one of the Chair to raise your concerns.

Answer 2

You as the Council are the employer. The Clerk is your member of staff. Do you have a staffing committee or something similar that looks after the HR issues?

Does the Clerk have an annual appraisal? Clerks need to achieve a satisfactory rating to get an annual spinal point review (up to the role limits ).

Comments

I'm a member of the public. I don't know if they are subject to annual appraisal but I know has recently completed a relative Clerks? Qualification therefore allowing for approval of 5% increase in salary

Answer 3

Are you a Cllr in the council you seek redress from or a member of public?

Are you saying there are threats from the clerk to you in response to your repeated questions which the clerk seems vexatious and you believe to have received incomplete answers?

Could you make your question less ambiguous?

Advice below about a complaint about the whole council is incorrect BYW - whatever the circumstances.

Comments

I'm a member of the public. If it is deemed unacceptable for actions taken outside of a Council meeting to discuss and accept an offer of a donation from a private company not then later reported and Minuted would it not then be possible to report to a Monitoring Officer?

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The question is poorly constructed I’m afraid which hinders a comprehensive reply.
The MO can / will only investigate matters of individual Cllrs, not a collective or the whole council, in relation to the code of conduct.
It’s hard enough to present objective example of potential breaches and even harder to achieve a meaningful conclusion from a MO.
The options available by way of sanction are close to irrelevant anyway so it is rarely even worth the effort apart from bragging rights.

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Thankyou. As my correspondence has been addressed to the Clerk, Chair and another serving Councillor (sometimes cc'd) the County Council Monitoring Offi er has stated I may make a complaint of the Chair but just make it clear that several Councillors were involved. I'm awaiting confirmation from the Parish Clerk of the names of all involved in the Agreement and acceptance of a donation taken outside of a formal Meeting and not reported or Minuted at the next or subsequent Meetings.