‘It later emerged that the Council had ignored its own Financial Regulations. Had they been followed, the fraud would have been exposed in the first month.’
This Council failed its residents when it allowed a clerk to fraudulently siphon off nearly £250,000 over two years. The clerk, who admitted working alone, was arrested, tried, and imprisoned.
What was not disclosed at first was how the theft went undetected. It later emerged that the Council had ignored its own Financial Regulations. Had they been followed, the fraud would have been exposed in the first month.
Following a wave of resignations and retirements, new councillors and a new clerk took office under a new Chair. For a time, the Council seemed to recover. However, as the clerk engaged with other clerks in training, tensions grew. The clerk resisted questions and any insistence on Standing Orders or policies. Over time, a sympathetic majority of councillors rallied around the clerk, marginalising those who challenged her.
This dynamic led to decisions being made outside formal meetings, with minutes retrospectively altered to legitimise them. Dissenting councillors were accused of bullying and pressured publicly to apologise or resign.
An independent HR investigation was commissioned but compromised. The new Chair and Vice Chair curtailed the process to a single day, limiting the team to evidence supplied by the clerk and her allies. No councillors were interviewed, and the investigators, obliged to rely on material “in good faith,” concluded there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing. Councillors were then denied access to the full HR report.
What began as financial mismanagement evolved into a deeper failure of governance, transparency, and accountability
‘Arguably the WORST parish council in England’
Hello Reader, this article is a brief introduction to what has been described in the North Yorkshire Enquirer as ‘Arguably the WORST Parish Council in England*’ and it really is……..
*please see our ‘news…’ page https://townandparishcouncillors.co.uk/newsarticles/
My parish council holds the baton for having the most witting and determined breach of legislation, the widest scope of those breaches and the longest duration – all evidenced in a damning External Auditor Public Interest Report.
The Information Commissioner has published over two dozen Decision Notices, most exposing breaches of legislation and several also include advice about compliance with Proper Practice.
This terrible situation arose in September 2011, when the competent and trained clerk was replaced with the chairman’s inexpert daughter. The chair and councillors conceded at an Information Rights Upper Tribunal – “there is no specialist knowledge and councillors can only act on their best endeavours”.
Upper Tribunal Judge Wikeley stated on 05 January 2024, ‘… this application betrays some fundamental misunderstandings on the part of the parish council of both the FOIA regime and the FTT process’. Oh dear…….
The chair has not been appointed since 2011, the agendas were only published weeks after the meetings were held for a whole decade and the AGAR is a total shambles. The External Auditor has carried out continuous Investigations since 2013.
The present circumstance is that all offices became vacant after the May 2022 local elections, so Potto council is, and has been for three years, entirely inquorate.
If you can find a more dysfunctional small council, let me know!
‘So inadequate was the knowledge of the councillors and staff present, they had no clue whether I was right, or not…’
The Organisation & Finance Committee inadvertently made the date, time and venue for their ‘usually covert’ meeting known to all councillors.
I took the opportunity to turn up, but was immediately challenged and told to leave, on the basis I was “not a member of the committee”.
Needless to say, I did not leave. I cited my right to attend a public committee meeting under the Openness of Local Government Bodies 2014 regulations.
So inadequate was the knowledge of the councillors and staff present, they had no clue whether I was right, or not. But as no one challenged me further the meeting went ahead, somewhat uncomfortably.
There has never been anything said about that day, but most Committee meetings are now properly summoned and their schedule published. The exception, as yet, is the Personnel Committee, which it is still erroneously claimed is confidential.
There is also a lack of publication of documents ahead of meetings, both of committees AND for full council. The incorrect assertion is that these are ‘confidential’ and therefore not available to the public. I’m of course working on rectifying this.
‘Complaints which would not stand up to a formal investigation are openly discussed by councillors and their associates outside meetings and on social media, apparently without any real understanding of the legislation’
In December 2024, my parish council considered the budget review and precept in confidential session. This was neither appropriate nor was the meeting properly convened. Another Councillor and I raised queries on, what appeared to be, exponential growth to paybill costs and an overall extremely high total payroll for the number, roles and hours of staff employed. Our questions went unanswered by any councillor and the clerk became visibly upset stating ‘that’s what it costs’ and ‘you’ll have to sack one of us. In response to this, a councillor proposed we moved to a vote, which was carried without proper discussion or any meaningful explanation.
Months later, the other councillor and I have received nothing to clarify or substantiate the sums and remain persistent in our pursuit of answers and clarification without success. My colleague, following months of vilification, resigned.
During this time, the clerk resigned alleging ‘harassment’, ‘abuse’ and ‘disrespect’. These alleged behaviours (and multiple others) were summarised to the council, who agreed to submit a complaint to the Monitoring Officer. These complaints are now being investigated as breaches of the Code of Conduct.
6 months on from the December meeting, I remain a councillor representing my ward. Complaints which would not stand up to a formal investigation are openly discussed by councillors and their associates apparently without any real understanding of the legislation. Recorded at meetings in full view of the public, I am ostracised and bullied, the evidence of their hostility and unprofessionalism is clear to see.
‘The Chair shouted at me telling me to shut up and that NO, I may NOT speak.’
When I became a councillor in May 2023, I expected to be treated as an equal. Instead, any contribution I have attempted to make, has been perceived and responded to as though they were criticism, disrespectful and a maliciously motivated challenge to the status quo.
Where Chair and Proper Officer could otherwise have, by example, mentored and nurtured an enthusiastic new councillor, they chose to admonish, condescend and, on occasion, express their outright rage towards me.
In summer 2023, at a meeting in public, at which the council considered candidates for co-option. I asked if I might speak about my feeling that advertising our vacancies could have been wider, thus attracting a greater number of potential candidates to fill three vacant posts. The Chair shouted at me telling me to shut up and that NO, I may NOT speak. The tone was set and has remained hostile ever since.
Other ‘heinous’ and ‘dangerous’ matters I have raised include:
1. Greater transparency, openness and the development of meaningful engagement with the community.
2. The application of proper governance in the letting of substantial contracts, where this had plainly been absent.
Most recently, in seeking to gain a clearer understanding of some unusual trends noticed in finances, it has now been alleged that such questions are a waste of staff time and a direct challenge to their probity. The questions have so distressed the PO that these actions are cited as responsible for their tendering their resignation.
‘Shooting the Messenger- instead of addressing the issues, they decided to vilify the resident who calls them out’
My council discovered a massive overspend against budget for 2023-24, in May 24. The new Chair told the public it would be investigated. Blame was pointed towards the previous Chair and Town Clerk.
No investigation or report ever came back to council.
In June, all the AGAR Assertions were approved as “Met”. The Chair urged councillors not to dwell on the past as it couldn’t be changed.
During the Inspection Period, I uncovered many wrong doings during 2023-24. No Assertions were met!
Before submitting Objections to the External Auditor, I met the Clerk, the Vice-Chair and another Councillor, to discuss my findings. They accepted my evidence and agreed to call an Extraordinary Meeting, to revisit the Assertions. This response seemed positive.
Two months later.
An Extraordinary Meeting was eventually held. The Chair said revisiting the assertions was pointless. The council would incur Auditor costs anyway and I had tried to blackmail the council! The public believed him.
I asked to meet a councillor privately, to discuss my concerns that issues continue and another massive overspend for 2024-25 is highly likely. He invited other concerned councillors.
This meeting was leaked to other councillors! One barged in during the meeting with another two loitered outside the door.
The public took to social media within hours to vilify me. I’m accused of using council premises inappropriately and should be stopped.
Council knows the Assertions weren’t met. Instead of addressing the issues, they decided to vilify the resident who calls them out.
‘clerks are professionals, councillors are amateurs’
I have twice resigned due to disputes with clerks. First time around as a brand-new Councillor I wanted access to the NALC password. The Locum clerk refused and when pressed by the Chairman told her that she would resign if instructed to do so. She added that she would then ensure we were blacklisted with her Locum agency as they did not place people with “troublesome Councils”.
When I was later co-opted with a new clerk, I identified significant savings i.e. whereby EMRs had been unlawfully authorised. I also challenged many procedural matters including how the EMR savings should be accounted for come precept setting time. These challenges were largely tolerated and agreed as the clerk was deemed as being “in training” but when I challenged about the way she was being managed, she confided in one Councillor that she dreaded me coming in the room. There were also problems with Assistant Clerk who refused to allow me to negotiate with a Council Officer about project costs stipulating that she alone was allowed to do this. When this Asst Clerk resigned two Staffing Committee Councillors decreed that “clerks are professionals and councillors are amateurs” and at a Full Council meeting when discussing the actual resignation details publicly outed my behaviour as being unacceptable and warned if I didn’t stop there would likely be more resignations and possible constructive dismissal claims. Whilst one Councillor protested about what he saw as the bullying of me I decided my Council didn’t really want to change but wanted an easy life instead . I resigned (again)…
’the clerk worked elsewhere the same week that she said that she didn’t want to work evenings for us’
The clerk put an item on the full council meeting agenda to suspend several committees. She stated that she had a lot of meetings to cover and didn’t want to have to attend so many. Her statement can be heard in the recording of the meeting and was reported in the press. Along with several councillors (including the Mayor) she made a complaint to IPSO about the article, which was not upheld. It later transpired that she had worked as a locum clerk at a neighbouring parish council the same week that our council voted by majority to suspend virtually all of our committees. Full council had not approved any requests from the clerk to work any more hours.
’the motion was carried with a majority of councillors either not knowing or caring what was going on or not able to do their own due diligence’
’I remember an item to award a contract for some bookkeeping work to a sole trader. There was clearly a divide between the councillors, some appeared unperturbed by the questions being raised by their colleagues – who was this sole trader, why can’t we find them on line, will they be able to manage the town council systems – others silently going along with what was being recommended by the clerk.
In the end the motion was carried with, it seemed, a majority of councillors either not knowing or caring what the hell was going on or not able to do their own due diligence and have their questions answered.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, when we had all gone away to figure out who this person was and why any reference to them on line went up a dead end, a friend discovered that not everyone in the town was ‘blocked’ from looking at the Facebook business page of the trader concerned. Yes, that’s right, the trader hadn’t managed to block everyone from finding out that they were, in fact, the recently resigned Responsible Finance Officer from the council. The very person who ought to have been doing due diligence and checks on any potential new contractors.’
’the staffing subcommittee didn’t even acknowledge my complaint for 6 weeks’
‘I submitted a complaint about the clerk to the staffing sub-committee. I did not do that lightly, as I feared the repercussions, but the problem was so serious and unaddressed I couldn’t see another route, and to stay silent would just normalize the situation. The staffing sub-committee didn’t even acknowledge my complaint for six weeks. Then some weeks later I got a cursory email saying they had rejected it. I was not surprised, however. The staffing sub-committee seemed to be there to enable the clerk to act with impunity.’
’I decided not to stand for re-election as the risk of false allegations was too great’
‘A councillor was found in breach of the code of conduct for participating in meetings about a big council project in which he had an interest. Over a million pounds involved. He and the clerk accused me (falsely) of putting pressure on the Monitoring Office. I tried to refer myself to the Monitoring Office to get the allegation dealt with. I was told they would not accept self-referrals. I submitted a complaint to the council’s staffing committee – no action was taken. There was no way for me to get the allegation dealt with. Meanwhile, the councillor kept participating in the project votes and discussions, despite the Monitoring Office’s finding. I decided not to stand for re-election as the risk of false allegations was too great. The councillor was found in breach of the code of conduct a second time and told to appear before a standards hearing. He still carried on participating and voting on the project. Several months later, he undertook at the hearing to comply with the code. But by then all the significant project votes and discussions were done. He is still on the council, elected unopposed. The Local Government Ombudsman found the Monitoring Office at fault for taking so long to deal with the repeated code breaches.’
’It is not right that so much control of the agenda is exercised by the clerk.’
The council was undertaking a big sports development project in partnership with a funding body. It was clear to me that some councillors did not understand the contract with the funding body, nor have a grasp of the project risks. I asked for an item on the agenda for a Q&A session about the project, so that the council could establish what it knew and did not know, and what to find out to reduce risk. No decisions about the project were to be taken in the session, it was just for information gathering and sharing. My proposed item was refused by the clerk. One of the reasons she gave was that it was an ‘attempt to undermine staff’. I was shocked by this allegation. Months later, the project had to be scrapped because of issues that emerged that could have been uncovered much earlier. For example, the site location turned out to be too small to meet sporting regulatory needs. It also emerged that some councillors and staff were aware of these issues for some considerable time. If we had had the Q&A session I proposed we could have saved the council and the residents an awful lot of time, effort and money. It is not right that so much control of the agenda is exercised by the clerk.
’I shrugged it off but as it went on over time it did affect me’
‘I was targeted by anonymous emails to my councillor account, a closed social media group about me that accused me of ‘meddling in things that are none of my business’, and by anonymous social media posts timed to match my attendance at meetings. The posts were not threatening, but unsettling. They all seemed to be related to my council role. Some seemed to have a knowledge of my movements. I never knew who was behind them but I suspected they had some connection with the council and my questioning of what was going on. Initially I shrugged it off but as it went on over time it did affect me. With hindsight, I suspect that was the intention. I’m sorry to say I did not stand for re-election partly because of this.’
’There is no effective governance of a poor performing parish council’
‘The primary challenges I faced when joining the parish council was the lack of professionalism. Coming from a security, risk and project management background the lack of due diligence was astonishing. Thousands of pounds of rate payer money spent on equipment with no thought to guarantees and on legal advice for a historic grievance that seemed to become a very personal battle of wills for some. Conflicts of interest were unrecognised, and even when pointed out they were ignored. Standing orders and financial policies were not followed. Complete lack of adherence to NOLAN principles. Worse was the fact that councillors wished to hide mistakes rather than address them and make good. On top of this, the amount of paperwork a parish councillor has to read was overwhelming. It was plain that many councillors didn’t bother to read it and voted with their clique. Clerks are only as good as their training and some give very poor advice and take offence if a councillor corrects them. There is no effective governance of a poor performing parish council. Monitoring Officers are toothless and their process of addressing a code of conduct complaint appears to be a “he said, she said” scenario with no real scrutiny, and seemingly usually favours the council.’
‘the clerk was not being managed at all’
I originally became a Councillor as a reformer and with a history in procedural audit, I have since resigned twice. My first spell ended when an officious Locum refused me access to NALCs password. At the time the senior Councillors refused to intervene as they were scared the Locum would leave after she threatened to do so and blacklist us with her agency. Then after considerable local support I applied for my own vacancy and was elected unopposed. That went down like a lead balloon with my detractors. I continued to the end of that Council and did not apply for the new Council due to ongoing conflicts with the new trainee clerks.
I was later persuaded to apply for co-option and then started to make a real difference with several significant unlawful practices being unearthed. I was then asked to join the Staffing Committee where I discovered that the clerk was not being managed at all and it ended up with her walking out of the meeting in tears. Things then changed with me suddenly becoming the villain. One senior councillor then chose to bring this up during a Full Council meeting describing my behaviour as unacceptable and that it could lead to possible staff resignations.
I then realised nothing had really changed, inner sanctums always form and seek alliances with the clerk to facilitate delivery of their own agendas. It is so easy to become a pariah should you challenge the status quo. Too many Councillors simply join to make up the numbers and don’t make the effort to do things properly. That has to change.’
‘the clerk, Chair, Deputy Chair, and all the other councillors…demonstrated either how little they knew about and understood the LGO Model Code of Conduct, or just how factional and prejudiced they were against us’
‘A councillor had a clear conflict of interests in a project he was all but managing with a member of the staff team. He chaired a subcommittee made up of other conflicted and interested parties to further the project. At council meetings I would comment when he spoke on the subject – ‘I don’t think that you should be speaking on this, you have an interest’ or ‘you’re speaking on this subject again when you have an interest’. Other councillors and the Chair and Deputy Chair would look at me as if I was an idiot or worse, or look down as if embarrassed for me, doing my little outburst.
When the councillor was found to have breached the code of conduct, the clerk, Chair, Deputy Chair, and all the other councillors bar our small group, demonstrated either how little they knew about and understood the LGA Model Code of Conduct, or just how factional and prejudiced they were against us. They wasted no time in disparaging the Monitoring Officer, called on the ALC to confirm that there was no conflict, who in turn approached a company who had contributed to the writing of the new LGA Code of Conduct. All that effort in an attempt to make a breach of the Code go away for one clearly conflicted councillor.’
CIVIC 