Is there any way that we can make our parish council actually do what they are supposed to do?

Question

Our local parish council has just recently increased our precept by 72% due to its own failings at handling its affairs. In the last few years it has taken responsibility for various things that are over and above what it needs. It has brought a sand machine to remove sand off the promenade, even though removing the sand is not the PC's responsibility, but the machine was brought because one of the main councillors owns the pub along the prom so it helps his patrons get there easier if the sand is cleared more often than the body that does do it. The previous clerk took the PC to a tribunal for constructive dismissal and with the help of several councillors managed to secure himself £15,000. The case never went to court, the PC never fought it because if they had it would have been proved that the clerk didn't have a leg to stand on. He says he was bullied but he had no evidence of this and when he handed his notice in he worked his full months notice and then stayed on an extra month and a half in a consulting position to "assist" the new clerk. The previous clerk had had no experience of being a parish clerk and he did agree when he was first taken on that he would go on some of the many courses to help him become trained in the role - he never went on any of them. The allegations of bullying were made when a couple of the decent councillors questioned why there were 2 sets of accounts and why those accounts didn't match up so the clerk took it upon himself without the agreement of the council to get an independant audit of the accounts and the way the council was run at the cost to the parish of nigh on £3000. This audit came back with the recommendations that the council is not fit for purpose and they should all seek to become more transparent so they can regain the publics trust. Although of course alot of the report was made private so we only get to see a small portion of it so noone truely knows what it says and the corrupt councillors pick and chose what parts to tell us usually taken out of context and twisted so it looks better for them.

At the last elections the public managed to get at least 6 councillors who were not corrupt and they managed to get 2 of those 6 voted into the chair and vice chair. Unfortunately the corrupt councillors took up a harrassment campaign which made the chair ill and forced him to resign his entire post and the vice chair to do the same. Since then they managed at the local bye election to ensure they had the 2 candidates they wanted elected due to them creating "paper candidates" so that the independant candidates lost votes due to the public not actually realising that some of the "indendant" candidates were only there to take votes off the real ones. These 2 candidates recently resigned themselves leaving the council with 4 corrupt councillors and 4 decent ones. So instead of forcing an election it was deemed better that any candidates should be co-opted on. This happened last night and boy was that fun first of all the council couldn't decide how to run it and even now I have no idea how it worked out all i do know is that 1 candidate who put his name forward did try to pull out of the running but got persuaded by one of the corrupt ones to stay in the running cos he was definately going to get on the PC. And the other candidate who got co-opted on noone appears to know who he is or where he came from (and in a small village like ours that is strange)???  The first guy got a 4 votes for and 4 votes against and the chairman used his casting vote for him (this was the candidate who was going to pull out but got persuaded to run) whereas the 2nd guy got 4 votes for 2 votes against with 2 abstaining mainly due to one of the decent councillors walking out in disgust.
It truely was a complete farce and several members of the public have expressed their disgust and a petition has been started to show a no confidence vote in our parish council.
Many have stated that they are going to refuse to pay the precept part of their council tax although not quite sure this is possible.
What I really want to know is is there any way to sue the council or force the council to do what they are supposed to do and work for the best of the village not to see how much they can get out of it.
Whenever anyone from the public attempts to question the council they are usually gavel banged down and told to shut up especially if the questions come from a woman because the men on the council are living in the middle ages where woman should never have the audacity to speak out and question a man.
Anything the council doesn't want the public to know about is usually pink papered regardless so noone ever really knows the truth about what is really going on.
God help us all if the government get their wish and the district councils are abolished giving more powers and more money to the parish councils especially with there being no way to regulate them.

Answer 1

What a sad story! I don't know of any single thing that will solve your problems. Taking legal action against the council is probably not something you want to do. Challenging a council decision in the High Court has costs typically starting around £10,000. The main possibilities are:

• If any councillor has involved themselves in decisions that gave them personal advantage, this could be criminal and could be reported to the police
• If there are clear cases of councillors behaving wrongly, complaints can be made to the Monitoring Officer, usually the senior legal officer in the District Council. There are no sanctions beyond name and shame, but it can cause publicity and embarrassment
• If you can identify serious financial mismanagement, you can complain to the auditor
• You can seek publicity in many different ways to embarrass poorly behaved councillors
• You can continue to put up alternative candidates for the council and support their campaigns for election

You've obviously tried some of these, but the only way forward is to keep applying pressure and encouraging democratic participation, I'm afraid.

Comments

One thing I would check is the councillors registers of interest forms. This might be revealing if they have not declared anything that they should. This is a criminal offence also.
Good luck with the monitoring officer - very rarely are miscreants actually publicly named by our District and they certainly won't call the police in.
I think involving the local paper is the way to go (if you have one left).
Look out for a casual vacancy in the council and get your 10 signatures off to the District to get an election.

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Our Chairman was found to be guilty of not registering his interests and now he and the clerk have together warned me, in writing, that if I e-mail questions to the clerk, it causes her stress and if she resigns, it will be construed as harassment, bullying and running a vendetta against her. I do ask questions as I was new to being councillor, but I have also uncovered 2 DPA breaches and the Clerk not following our Financial Procedures for internal audit. I am not surprised people resign or do not want to become a councillor, I am trying to hang on but it is stressful, I do feel a responsibility to those who voted for me though.
They have taken legal advice and  the council could be sued for constructive dismissal with myself being named.

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It is best to try hard to avoid an employment dispute, as it can be very costly in time and money. If there is a risk of that, it is wise to keep careful notes of all relevant exchanges or other events, noting who else was involved. Be prepared!

Answer 2

Sadly this is now all too common.
I absolutely agree with your conclusion, God help us all.

Our Parish Council turned our village into a war zone and 6 years later with two breaches of Code of Conduct against a Chair who refused to resign, four clerks and too many with good intent who joined the PC and then left in frustration, we are now finally moving forward.
If you want the public to know what is really going on set up a blog and convey the information yourself. No personal comments, stick to the facts. Ask questions, evidence your statements and evidence copies of the legal framework. Make it entertaining, possibly even funny. Always double check any technical details with the monitoring office. You could always include your own minutes from the meetings with your own personal comments your very own personal assessments.
Don't give up.