Should the Principal Council arrange the first meeting of a newly-created Joint Parish Council?

Question

The "Governance Toolkit for Parish and Town Councils" states that, "The principal council is responsible for arranging the first meeting of a new parish council" and that, "The principal council is responsible for producing the minutes of the first meeting".  However, our principal council's Monitoring Officer disputes this, and I can find no basis in legislation for these statements. Grateful if someone could point me in the right direction. Thanks!

Answer 1

You don't make clear whether this is the formation of completely new parish council from the amalgamation of two previous ( smaller) PC's or the formation of  new PC from two small parishes which did not have a PC before.

If there was no PC before then I would say that it was the duty of the principle council to arrange the formation from elections of councillors and organising and supporting the first meeting.

I fit is the amalgamation of two small PC's to form a larger one then the PC's will have two of each( clerks and councillors) The number of councillors will of course be specified by the principle and this coming election would be an ideal point at which to vote in the new council( if total seats available is to change) It would I assume also fall to the duty of the principle to oversee and assist the facilitation of the formation.

Comments

The new council will be a grouping of two adjoining parishes, one currently having a Parish Council (and a parish clerk), the other having only a Parish Meeting that has been granted certain powers of a parish council in order to levy, and to spend, a parish precept.
Both parish authorities will be dissolved at midnight 3/4 May, so the employment of the one clerk will then end. The Reorganisation Order could have included provision for that clerk to transfer to the new council, but it does not.

Once elections have taken place on 4 May, we will know who the new councillors will be (and whether they will include anyone with prior experience), but the new Joint Parish Council will not be formally constituted until it meets for the first time. A clerk could be appointed at that first meeting - and it could be the former clerk of the dissolved parish council - but until then the new council will be a clerk-free zone.

In these circumstances, the "Governance Toolkit" suggests that it is the responsibility of the principal council (probably in the form of its Democratic Services Officer) to call the first meeting of the new joint parish council, set its agenda and take the minutes. NALC has confirmed this to be the case, but nobody has been able to cite legislation that confers these responsibilities upon the principal council.

Answer 2

Local Government Act 1972 (10)(2)(b) states that for council meetings "a summons to attend the meeting, specifying the business proposed to be transacted at the meeting and certified by the proper officer of the council, shall be sent to every member of the council by an appropriate method."

Until you have the first meeting you will not have a proper officer as that is one of the jobs to be done at the first meeting. That is why it falls to Principal Council to arrange the meeting.

Comments

Ah, excellent argument, thanks. I'll raise that with the Monitoring Officer, and see whether he finds this sufficiently persuasive!
Throughout the Community Governance Review and subsequent process, I have been disappointed by the apparent lack of knowledge on the part of the Monitoring Officer and his staff - indeed, I have had to persuade him that some of the advice given has been wholly incorrect. He has admitted that some sections of the Reorganisation Order (e.g. the number of council seats allotted to each parish, which fails to reflect the respective electoral populations) were drafted for reasons of expediency, but has pointed out that to amend the Order would mean waiting a further 4 years for the creation of the Joint Parish Council.

Answer 3

Section 12 gives the principal council the power to determine its own arrangements for the grouping order, thus:

"An order made by a district council or district councils under section 10 or 11 above may contain such incidental, consequential, transitional or supplementary provision as may appear to the district council or district councils to be necessary or proper for the purposes or in consequence of the order or for giving full effect thereto..."

I note your previous comment about the transfer of the Clerk to the new Council. This should not be an automatic process. The new Council should review the job description and salary grading of the new wider responsibility and consider whether it wishes to open the vacancy to outside competition. The candidate(s) should then be interviewed to assess their suitability for the role. To comply fully with employment legislation, a redundancy notice should have been issued by the previous employer if the new Council will be a new corporate body.

Comments

Thanks!  I appreciate that the primary council could have made provision for the transfer of staff, but it limited that element of the Reorganisation Order to the transfer of "any property, rights and liabilities".

I did wonder about a redundancy notice but, unfortunately, we are being guided by our County ALC, with some input from NALC's legal advisor, and it's sadly a case of the blind leading the blind; the principal council is not much better.  You are the first to mention the R-word!

Answer 4

Sadly, I have been unable to make any progress on this issue, and it looks very much as though this grouping will turn out to be a very unhappy one, at least initially.

The Reorganisation Order makes it perfectly clear that the two current parish authorities (one a parish council, the other a parish meeting granted certain powers of a parish council) will be dissolved on 3 May, and that a new grouped parish council will be created on 4 May. The Order makes no provision under S.98(5)(b) of the 2007 Act for any transfer of staff to the new grouped parish council.

The current clerk and chair of the parish council to be dissolved nevertheless insist that their council is not being "dissolved", but is somehow to morph into the grouped council, which should not therefore be considered a "new" council, and its current clerk will automatically become the proper officer of the grouped council. She has therefore requested the bank to change the name on its account to that of the grouped council, and maintains that she and the Chair, who is standing for what she sees as re-election, will remain signatories to the account.  Illogical though it may be, this interpretation of the Reorganisation Order has been agreed with the CEO of the local ALC, and the principal council's Monitoring Officer is content to let them get on with it.

Is this really local democracy in action?

Answer 5

I would suggest raising a concern with the actions of the Principal Authority MO with your local govt ombudsman as they could amount to maladministration. The dissolution of the current entities means that the Clerk cannot simply assume the same role in a brand new Parish Council, and the current chair cannot assume a caretaker handover role either.  The Principal Authority could film or audio record the inaugural meeting so that the subsequently apppointed Clerk could write the minutes by listening to the recording.

Comments

After repeatedly reminding them of the relevant legislation, the principal council has finally agreed to amend the Reorganisation Order to include provision, under S.98(5)(b) of the 2007 Act, for the transfer of staff to the new council. Fortunately, only one of the parish authorities to be dissolved employs a Clerk!  I despair at the lack of knowledge on the part of the principal council's legal team: fortunately, the end result is that the new council will have a proper officer in place, able to summons its first Annual Meeting, and avoiding the need for further involvement of the principal council.

The Clerk to be transferred has finally conceded that her current employer will be dissolved, and that it is simply not good enough for its bank account to be renamed: a new council must have a new bank account! So, it looks as though the right things will happen in the end!

Whilst I am not greatly surprised by the shortcomings of our principal council's legal team (they have form in this regard), what disappoints me most is the utter uselessness of the CEO of our local Association of Local Councils: that her lack of understanding of relevant legislation should require correction by mere electors of a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere suggests that the membership fee is hardly worth paying.

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The Monitoring Officer role is simply to review complaints under the Code of Conduct so there is not remit to judge whether a council has complied with relevant legislation.  Some principal authorities have a governance officer who may be able to advise but I agree that in practice there is no formal "authority" to refer such matters to.  I was involved in a similar "new" parish many years ago and the Returning Officer of the principal authority came to our first meeting to kick things off and we went from there.

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A confusion of titles and roles, I'm afraid. Our principal council's Monitoring Officer is also Head of Law & Governance, and it was wearing the latter hat that he signed the original Reorganisation Order.