Who deals with complaints about the Parish Council?

Question

The Chair of our Parish Council has behaved inappropriately on several issues. For example, she insisted on distrubuting the questionnaire on fast speed broadband herself and failed to do so. Our village is now in the 20% who will not receive the service. When questionned on the matter she stated "if you want faster broadband you will have to move house".  There are other more complex issues and parishioners are furious. what is the correct course of action?

Answer 1

Democratic accountability and the ballot box are your main weapons here.  Even the council cannot remove the chairman until the end of the council year, in May.  At the start of each new council year, the chairman is elected, and if you are dissatisfied with the council chairman, you can press councillors to elect someone different next May.

Beyond that, councillors may well be swayed by vocal and extensive public protest and consider making changes, or even resigning.  The latter is helpful provided you have alternative candidates lined up.  10 electors can insist on an election rather than a vacancy being filled by co-option.

Once every four years, the whole council must be elected - the next election will be in May 2015.

Comments

I know this is an old question but as our elections are now in May 2017 a question has cropped up.
The number of parish councillors for our parish is 10. They say that if at least 10 do not come forward for nomination the ones left will automatically be co-opted on and our clique of 3 people will be returned. Is this correct?

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Yes, you do need to drum up sufficient candidates to fill the council without needing the councillors you hope to eject. Strictly speaking, they are not co-opted, since there is no decision to be made. It's just that if candidates have valid nominations and their number is no more than the number of council seats, there is nothing to have a poll about. So they are automatically appointed.

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Thank you very much. It is so sad these days that few are interested or are put off putting forward their names to serve their community. I think the election will pass us by unfortunately.
I do appreciate your help and respect your advice I just think it is like 'chewing rocks' to get rid of the rotten apples!!