HERE WE GO AGAIN

Question

‘They want us out’: bitter feud between locals and ‘newbies’ splits genteel Yorkshire village | Yorkshire | The Guardian

Sounds so familiar to me

Answer 1

Much more common than might initially be thought.
With £708 million accrued into town & parish precepts in England (£53 mil more than last year) it astounds and depresses me that there is such little public scrutiny, such a dysfunctional checks and balances system via the (so-called) audit process, such commonly incapable clerks and Cllrs.
Get it in the media and get the spotlight on it….

£708 million often being “administered” by complete idiots.

Comments

Would these be the same complete idiots who you described in a previous post as  " ... likely to be retired / semi retired professionals with a broad range of qualification and experience"?

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I’d probably give it 50/50 idiots and capable in relation to Cllrs - what would you give it?

In relation to the clerk / councillor validity of advice scenario - which is what you are misquoting - what is the % of qualified / unqualified clerks?

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Not sure about the correlation between qualification and competence. I know several highly competent unqualified clerks and vice versa.

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Agreed - of itself qualification doesn’t make for competence - but it is a starting point.
Achievement of a standard provides a basic starting point to offer informed advice but it doesn’t help if the advice still isn’t sound.
The comments here seem to indicate a fairly broad spectrum of problems, I have to say that I’d prefer to see the achievement of a standard rather than not when all else is equal.

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My main concern with CiLCA is that it covers a lot of "stuff" in quite a short space of time (much of which is more relevant to a town council than a small parish council), but it might be years before a Clerk needs to dip into the memory bank on a particular issue. If they have the confidence to say "I need to go away and look that up" all is well, but I've seen too many feel obliged to provide an on-the-spot answer, which is often incorrect.

Answer 2

I've watched the videos online and find it all rather sad.  We seem to have lost the ability to be civil to one another since covid

Answer 3

I recently stepped down after 12 years of seeing public money flushed down the pan and watching systemic bullying as I realised no one is bothered
The residents moan but neither put in formal complaints or do anything
Most Councillors have never read Standing Orders or carried out meaningful training
Meetings are about process not progress

In my case the PC has a pathological hatred towards Borough and County Councillors so they never meet so huge amounts of grants that could improve our community go begging
But worse of all no government is going to do anything as the amounts of money overall are trivial and it’s too much trouble to try reform the system

Don’t get me wrong I’m aware there are effective and well run PC’s throughout the Country but unfortunately they don’t get the publicity they deserve

Comments

And the battle - for that is what it is - by any individual that seeks to implement change and improvement eventually grinds them down to the point where they quit and so the perusal cycle of crap in crap out continues…..