Is this the right way for the clerk to write the agenda

Question

This week the clerk sent out the agenda one item is to receive an up date on the defibrillator projects . Then in the pack of papers for the meeting she writes the update then at the bottom of the page there is a heading Actions she wants us to approve one of the item is to approve cost for a new door for the defibrillator £172.00 surely this must be on the agenda.?
I understand if it is not on the agenda we can not vote on it ?

Answer 1

An agenda must specify the business to be transacted at a meeting in such a way that the member who receives it can identify the matters which he or she will be expected to discuss (LGA 1972 Sch 12) and a council cannot lawfully decide any matter which is not specified in the summons (agenda).  From the information you have given, I would suggest that the update is lawful but the requirement for a decision is not as it is not clearly specified on the agenda.
However (and there's always a "however"!), if the door to a defibrillator cabinet has been damaged I would have thought this is something that the clerk should be able to authorise in accordance with delegated powers in matters of urgency as clearly it is important that the defib is operational.  Of course, it depends upon your standing orders, financial regs or any scheme of delegation and I'm making an assumption here that the defib is actually owned and maintained by the council.  For my council, I'd expect the clerk to go ahead and arrange for the repair and then tell the council at the next meeting.    In such a case, the clerk could include the report of his or her actions in the update rather than require a separate agenda item.

Comments

Its interesting that you refer to a scheme of delegation.  Is there a requirement to maintain such a "control document".  IMHO ours is in a mess and a request that we establish a delegation policy i.e. to explain whats involved has so far gone unanswered.  As an example all Highways matters have been devolved to a Committee but that Committee does not have a clue what powers they have and spend on anything they see fit . Indeed I am confident that most of our spend should come under S137 but we don't appear to maintain  a record of that let alone apply its tests

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Scottie, the Standing Orders and Financial Regulations for your parish council will have the basic levels of delegation for committees and the clerk. For example, ours allows committees to spend up to £5000 before council steps in and £1000 for the clerk under business critical spend which I feel a defib door would fall under. Check these documents first as to what they say for your council..

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The SOs and Fin Regs obviously state the overriding financial caveats ie £5k etc but the problem is that if the party receiving  the delegated powers doesn't know what the function involves well it makes the whole process a joke.  So who is to blame the person devolving the function or the person receiving it .  Everybody says " not my problem".  To me the buck stops with the RFO. Procedurally its a mess

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Are you subscribed to NALC?

So, the reason I ask is that, it seems to me, that so many of these types of systemic problems could / should more easily be addressed by the overarching support organisation.
They do it with model standing orders, they could just as easily do it with more (there are already some) templates and formats for routine issues which could then be ‘personalised’ by individual member councils.
All town and parish councils do similar work, they all have similar problems and they could all benefit from a single fit for purpose general operating template which could be personalised and adopted by each subscribed council.
So I think there is a much bigger role in fixing (and a lot of responsibility for the apparent deficiencies) of issues across nationwide councils which sits with NALC. Rather than messing around with the likes of the civility and respect project, aligning themselves with SLCC and failing to properly serve Cllrs, many of the issues which manifest here are as a consequence of Cllrs not having adequate support from, well, anywhere really.

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Ultimately the buck stops with the council so if you're establishing committees without setting terms of reference at the time, it's not surprising no one has any idea what authority the committee has.  In my council we have committees but none have spending powers.  It's not ideal but the committees do research into proposals, get quotes etc. and then refer to full council with a recommendation.  Slightly clunky but it works for us.
S137 expenditure suggests you don't have general power of competence and any expenditure under this must be shown separately in your accounts (not sure why your auditor isn't picking this up) but even so, it's unlikely that most of your spend should come under s137 as that's expenditure where there literally is no other power to spend and is limited to a set amount per elector.

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The way I see it is that nobody oversees the PC function.  Ultimately the driving force behind a good  Council should be good Councillors.   For whatever reasons we generally have poor Cllrs and NALC comes along in its role to support PCs and has decided that the best way to do that is to beef up the role of the Clerk. I genuinely believe they have no interest in improving Cllr standards. They tend to dismiss me as an irritant. It doesn't help of course that  NALC insists that all communications to have to go through the Clerk who  has the "capacity " to ignore requests.  What then happens of course is that the Clerk  works with senior Cllrs to control most things and the  other Cllrs just make up the numbers. As regards delegation if  functions are performed  by the Full Council then generally speaking the Clerk is present and should opine on lawfulness. However if this knowledge is not attached to any delegation then any lawfulness check can go out of the window (we don't have GPC) .  I think its a shambles

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As I have said, the buck stops with the council, not NALC or anyone else, as only councillors can make decisions.   If you don't like your standing orders, then change them.  there is no legal requirement to adopt the NALC standard (which is a convenience but not obligatory) and their model set are conveniently laid out with those bits enshrined in law in bold so you know which bits you can change and which bits you need the Government to change.  You do not need NALCs permission to change your standing orders.
Frankly if councillors aren't prepared to take their role seriously and work together to be effective, employing and managing staff appropriately within the out of date legislation we currently have to work within,  blaming NALC, the SLCC or Uncle Tom down the road isn't going to put things right or get that defib fixed.
Sorry, rant over.

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NALC STRATEGIC AIMS

 - Strong national and county voices promoting the sector and our prospectus for ultra-localism
 - Creating more local councils in England
 - Supporting councils and councillors
 - Effective national and county associations working together to deliver our vision

Don't seem to be doing quite so well with the 3rd point....  Just saying loike.

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Agree absolutely Delboy's wife.  The problem is that in many Councils "the system" is now so embedded that its impossible to change so many good people simply walk away.   Still after my press article about about my casual vacancy appointment I have received an E mail from "an investigative journalist" .  Lets see where that leads