Are Parish Meetings, as opposed to Parish Councils, more sensible for tiny rural parishes?

Question

My parish council spends about half its precept on the clerk. It does and achieves very little else, which is reasonable given the circumstances. Also, there is very little small parishes can do for their residents that the residents cannot do for themselves, such as reporting potholes to the Highways Authority, or picking up litter, running the village hall etc.etc. So we have a council that employs a clerk to raise a precept to pay a clerk to run the council to raise a precept to pay a clerk,,,,you see where I'm going with that. I have read that Parish Meetings meet once or twice a year, do not need a clerk and cannot raise a precept above a certain prescribed amount. Please could anyone out there who lives or runs a Parish Meeting advise and please could I hear from anyone who has a view on the continued existence of expensive and seemingly fairly useless, tiny, rural parish councils.

Answer 1

There may not be any readers who actually run Parish Meetings with no council. So 'll try to make a few comments.

You're right that the cost of a clerk is often a large proportion of the expenditures in a small parish. It certainly makes sense for parish councils to be sensitive to this issue and to look for ways to keep administrative overhead to an absolute minimum, and to concentrate on areas where value can be added. The question of the availability of a good clerk is a factor too.

The main advantages of a parish council are that it exists in perpetuity (if it becomes defunct the principal authority is expected to step in), can own property, and if it is has a paid clerk ensures that someone has the job of carrying out some administrative functions. Volunteer groups can be very successful, but they can also become defunct if people lose interest, and volunteers can get tired of bothering with tedious administration. Ownership of property can be vested in the public trustee.

Which direction to go has to be based on a judgement about the local situation.

Comments

Thank you for your answer.
I do not know that parish councils exist in perpetuity. They can be disbanded by referendum or converted to a parish meeting by the same method. Parish Meetings are not volunteer groups, they exist as a proper form of local government. There are some in my county. As I understand it Parish Meetings must meet at least twice a year and the first item of business, at the first meeting in May, is to appoint a chairman. The chairman stays in office until the next May meeting when he may be re-elected or someone else might take over. All parish voters are allowed at the meeting and any subject may be discussed without, as I understand it, an agenda. All present may vote. We have a grouped parish council and the grouped parishes have to hold their own Parish Meetings every May. It seems to me a sensible way for tiny rural parishes to proceed as most of what I have described goes on at our grouped parish council meetings anyway i.e. it is a general talking shop with members wandering off topic. Parish Meetings would do away with the need for a paid clerk, and why would any tiny rural parish want to own property anyway? The system seems to be tied with much less red tape and not so open to manipulation by cliques or higher authority. I would like to hear from anyone running a parish meeting.

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I understand that there are ways in which a particular parish council can cease to exist. The point is that all local authorities exist in perpetuity in the sense that whenever one particular authority ceases to exist, its responsibilities are passed to a successor. Some parish councils do own property; as I said the judgement depends on the local situation.