What must Cambourne Parish Council publish on their website?

There are quite a few documents CPC must be publishing on its website but doesn't. The Information Commissioner says that a Parish Council must publish its Publication Scheme.

Of course CPC hasn't published one. The Publication Scheme it does rely on is dated 4 November 2008. Except all those dated before 1st January 2009 are void.

Therefore CPC has no valid Publication Scheme.

As I have already shown the Parish Council hasn't published its Councillors' Register of Interests as require by law.

Two other documents that must be published on its website are:

Councillors Code of Conduct.
Complaints Procedure.

Ron says: The Council doesn't have an up to date Publication Scheme. Nor the required Register of Interests, Code of Conduct or Complaints Procedure. Maybe that is the answer. No register of interests, complaints or code of conduct our parish council just doesn't want residents to know what is going on. Happy Days for the Parish Council!

Complaining to the Monitoring Officer about Parish Councillors

The Monitoring Officer is an Officer on SCDC.

The Monitoring Officer has the specific duty to ensure that the Council, its Officers, and its Elected Councillors, maintain the highest standards of conduct in all they do. The main duties of the Monitoring Officer are set out below. The Monitoring Officers' legal basis is found in Section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, as amended by Schedule 5 paragraph 24 of the Local Government Act 2000.

The Monitoring Officer has three main roles:

To report on matters he/she believes are, or are likely to be, illegal or amount to maladministration.
To be responsible for Matters relating to the conduct of Councillors and Officers.
To be responsible for the operation of the Council's Constitution.

In order to ensure separation of roles, the Monitoring Officer may not also fulfil the duties of the Chief Finance Officer or the Head of Paid Service.

On the SCDC website it says the following:

Therefore to make a complaint against a Parish Councillor I should write to the Monitoring Officer. Right? The answer is wrong. Because elsewhere on the website it says:

Please note that if your complaint relates to a Town or Parish Councillor, then you should make a complaint to the relevant Town or Parish Council in the first instance. 

I made complaints against 5 Cambourne Parish Councillors over their Register of Interests. Having read two ways to make my complaints I did both. I emailed my complaints to the Monitoring Officer and to the Parish Clerk. I received the following from John Vickery, The Parish Clerk, regarding my complaint about Ruth Betson:

Ron
Thank you for your email I will look into the matter.
With the regard to your request for a copy of the Code of Conduct in our Publication scheme the supply of the document is by hard copy at the cost of 10p per sheet  and there are 6 pages. If you could arrange the payment and supply an address for it to be delivered to I will be happy to provide the document. It will be on the web site in the future once the site has been updated a page is being created and populated with the Councils policy documents. The register of interest is part of this work.
John Vickery

Of course nothing about the other 4 complaints.

The response from the Monitoring Officer was as follows:

Dear Mr Swanson,

I’m afraid I have not heard anything from Cambourne Parish Council regarding your complaints, which you copied to me, but I wouldn’t have expected to be contacted by them.  The procedure we follow in South Cambridgeshire is that complaints about parish councillors should be made in the first instance to the relevant parish council and dealt with through the parish’s own complaints procedures, which you have done. It is only if the parish council asks SCDC to handle a complaint due to a conflict of interest or if the complainant feels the parish council has not acted reasonably in handling their complaint that we would look at a parish council complaint.  I attach the SCDC Code of Conduct Complaints Procedure for your information.

I am copying Mr Vickery into this response and trust that he will respond directly to you advising you on the progress of your complaint.

Kind Regards

Fiona McMillan

Therefore the first part is wrong and the second part is what the Monitoring Officer is using.

With the whitewash that was the report into my complaints I sent an email to the Monitoring Officer detailing my assertion that Cambourne Parish Council had acted unreasonably. I wrote:

Dear Fiona McMillan,

I read from the Cambourne Parish Council minutes of the meeting of 3rd November 2015 the said Council has taken a decision to basically absolve those councillors I complained against. As it says in your e-mail: 

It is only if the parish council asks SCDC to handle a complaint due to a conflict of interest or if the complainant feels the parish council has not acted reasonably in handling their complaint that we would look at a parish council complaint

I feel Cambourne Parish Council has not acted reasonably in the handling of these complaints. 

The reasons why I feel this to be so are:

1. The report from the Parish Clerk (item 22 M143 - 03/11/2015) was resolved by all those attending. This means the outcome was voted for by Cllrs Crocker, Betson, Masters and Patel. They therefore voted for a conclusion to my complaints that they had an interest in.

2. It is held that "ignornace of the law is no excuse". When a councillor signs their declaration of interests they are warned they need to update their Declation of Interests within 28 days. This was no done. The way I read the outcome is the "ignorance of the law is the excuse".

3. Cllr Simon Crocker is a paid Parish Clerk at Caldecote Parish Council. He is also a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks. John Vickery, The Parish Clerk at Cambourne Parish Council. who wrote the report is also a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks. Therefore there is a conflcit of interest here.

4. There has been no communication between John Vickery and myself unless I prompted the correspondence. I only found out the complaint was coming before the meeting after the meeting had taken place. The report itself is not objective nor transparent and I feel this is a whitewash to protect Cllr Simon Crocker because he didn't update his Declaration of Interests for nearly 2.5 years. 

In conclusion I feel my complaints have been mishandled. 4 of those I complained against not only acted as the Jury, by voting for the report, but were also the Judges. There are conflicts of interest between the Clerk, John Vickery, and Simon Crocker, also a Parish Clerk (Caldecote Parish Council) and Chairman of Cambourne Parish Council.

Regards

Ron Swanson

Two weeks later I wrote again to the Monitoring Officer.

Dear Fiona McMillan

I wrote to you two weeks ago about my complaints about 5 Parish Councillors on Cambourne Parish Council and how I feel my complaints have been unreasonably handled by the Parish Council. I haven't heard anything from you one way or another. Please can you let me know what is happening.

Regards

Ron

I received the following reply from the Monitoring Officer on 11th December 2015:

Mr Swanson

I am sorry I have not been able to update you on progress.  I emailed the parish council clerk to ask for their comments on the issue you have raised and have not yet received a response from them.  I will send a chaser email today and let you know once I have heard from them.

Kind Regards

Fiona McMillan

Nothing since. The Parish Clerk can't be bothered to reply to the Monitoring Officer and the Monitoring Officer is not pursing the matter.

District Council Electoral Review

There is an electoral review under way for South Cambridgeshire District Council. The result is a the Local Government Boundary Commission England (LGBCE) is minded to review the boundaries for the wards for a total of 45 Councillors.

What does this mean for Cambourne? Good news we will have 3 Councillors for Cambourne. Whilst the number of electors per Councillor should average 2895 +/- 10% with 3 Councillors the average is 8685. Therefore the 10 +/- spread means the top limit is 9553 electors and the lower limit is 7817 electors.

Cambourne is predicted to have 7760 electors in 2021. This is slightly below the lower limit. Unless another Parish, like Knapwell is added, it is very likely that Cambourne will be electing three councillors of its own in 2018.

The question I ask is: Why can't we have 3 separate wards for Cambourne? One Councillor each for Great, Lower and Upper Cambourne. Each of the 3 parts of Cambourne have distinctive boundaries. Indeed I've called for the warding of Cambourne Parish before and do so again.

Please do get involved by making a submission to the LGBCE website. The link is here or here

Parish Councillor George Cooper and AEA Ltd

Whilst I was trawling through the Registers of Interest I found this snippet on Parish Councillor George Cooper. On his Register of Interests he works for the London Borough of Haringey and is a director of AEA Ltd. Whilst the former is good info, the latter rather opaque. What is AEA Ltd? I Googled and found The Association of Electoral Administrators Ltd. I don't understand the need to be so opaque in this matter.

Though he has since resigned.

George is past president and can talk about Parish Polls.

Cambourne Parish Council is acting illegally!

One of the recommendations approved by the Parish Council as a result of my complaint was:

3. The Parish Council web site will be updated to show a link to member’s register of interest.

I hope this is going to be published on their own website because the Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) states:

(7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.

Therefore Cambourne Parish Council must publish the register of interests for its Parish Councillors on its own website. Of course, at the date of publishing, this hasn't happened. Cambourne Parish Council has been acting illegally in this respect for many years as the Register of Interests must have already been published!

My complaint against Simon Crocker

I made a complaint against 5 Parish Councillors for not keeping their Register of Interests up to date. The law requires that each Councillor informs the Monitoring Officer of any changes within 28 days. On the top of the form it says:

I, (insert name), a Parish Councillor, give notice that I have set out below under the appropriate headings my interests, which are required to be declared under section 29 of the Localism Act 2011. Within 28 days of becoming aware of any change to the interests specified in this notice, I will provide written notification to the authority's Monitoring Officer of this change.

How this complaint started was a Conservative Leaflet that came through my door. It stated that Simon Crocker is a Parish Clerk at Caldecote Parish Council. I looked on the Parish Council website because by law the Register of Interests must be published and found nothing.

(Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.)

I looked on the SCDC website and found the Parish Council register of interests.

As can be seen from the entry copied from the website, Simon Crocker was unemployed. I looked on the Caldecote Parish Council website and found that Simon was employed from 7/3/2013. Some 2 years and 5 months he had been employed yet hadn't updated his Register of Interests.

Simon is a Parish Clerk of Caldecote Parish Council; Chairman of Cambourne Parish Council; is a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks and holds the Certificate in Local Council Administration (Cilca). Having all these positions and qualifications he still did not know he needed to keep up to date his Register of Interests. This seems rather doubtful.

I see that Simon Crocker has updated his Register of Interests, well over 2 years too late.

My complaint against Ghazala Mehboob

I made a complaint against 5 Parish Councillors for not keeping their Register of Interests up to date. The law requires that each Councillor informs the Monitoring Officer of any changes within 28 days. On the top of the form it says:

I, (insert name), a Parish Councillor, give notice that I have set out below under the appropriate headings my interests, which are required to be declared under section 29 of the Localism Act 2011. Within 28 days of becoming aware of any change to the interests specified in this notice, I will provide written notification to the authority's Monitoring Officer of this change.

How this complaint started was having looked at Simon Crocker Register of Interests whether other had done the same. I looked on the Cambourne Parish Council website and found nothing.

(Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.)

I looked on the SCDC website and found the Parish Council register of interests. Ghazala has a Register of Interests. A simple search on Google found more information than was declared.

Ghazala was a Director of Meglina Care Service Limited from 24th September 2014 to 19th May 2015. This company was voluntarily dissolved. On 3rd February 2015 Ghazala became a Director of Innate Financial Consultants Ltd.

Both of these should have been on the declared on Ghazala's Register of Interests. They were not and at the time of writing they still haven't.

My complaint against Ruth Betson

I made a complaint against 5 Parish Councillors for not keeping their Register of Interests up to date. The law requires that each Councillor informs the Monitoring Officer of any changes within 28 days.

How this complaint started was having looked at Simon Crocker Register of Interests whether other had done the same. I looked on the Cambourne Parish Council website and found nothing.

(Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.)

I looked on the SCDC website and found the Parish Council register of interests.

But there is no Register of Interests for Ruth Betson. Why the reticence at filling in a Register of Interests? Even at the time of writing there is no Regsiter of Interests published on the Cambourne PC website or on the SCDC website.

But Ruth does have a twitter feed and a LinkedIn profile. Ruth must therefore have work or business and these should be included in her Register of Interests.

How they are connected!
Also Ruth signed the nomination form for Simon Crocker at the Bourne by-election in September 2015.

My complaint against Jeyur Patel

I made a complaint against 5 Parish Councillors for not keeping their Register of Interests up to date. The law requires that each Councillor informs the Monitoring Officer of any changes within 28 days.

How this complaint started was having looked at Simon Crocker Register of Interests whether other had done the same. I looked on the Cambourne Parish Council website and found nothing.

(Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.)

I looked on the SCDC website and found the Parish Council register of interests.

But there is no Register of Interests for Jeyur Patel. Though on LinkedIn he is very free with his profile. He is a Project manager at ARM. He also states he is a Councillor on Cambourne Parish Council.

Why the reticence at filling in a Register of Interests? Even at the time of writing there is no Regsiter of Interests published on the Cambourne PC website or on the SCDC website.

My complaint against Sean Masters

I made a complaint against 5 Parish Councillors for not keeping their Register of Interests up to date. The law requires that each Councillor informs the Monitoring Officer of any changes within 28 days. On the top of the form it says:

I, (insert name), a Parish Councillor, give notice that I have set out below under the appropriate headings my interests, which are required to be declared under section 29 of the Localism Act 2011. Within 28 days of becoming aware of any change to the interests specified in this notice, I will provide written notification to the authority's Monitoring Officer of this change.

How this complaint started was having looked at Simon Crocker Register of Interests whether other had done the same. I looked on the Cambourne Parish Council website and found nothing.

(Localism Act 2011 Chapter 7 Section 29 (7) A parish council must, if it has a website, secure that its register is published on its website.)

I looked on the SCDC website and found the Parish Council register of interests.

This showed that Sean Masters owns Luxury Watch Hire (which was Luxury Watch Hire Ltd but was compulsory dissolved on 6/10/2015). Looking on Duedil I found that Sean Masters was a director of 2 companies when he was co-opted on the Parish Council on 20th May 2014. These were Auto Consultants Ltd (compulsory dissolved on 21/10/2014) and Motorbid Ltd (compulsory dissolved on 21/10/2014). The last two companies were not entered on his Register of Interests and should have been.

From the looks of it Sean starts up limited companies for them only to be compulsory dissolved. No annual returns or accounts submitted. Whilst compulsory dissolving of companies and the non-filing of documents is a matter for Companies House the only bearing is Sean should have declared these on his Register of Interests and once dissolved removed them.

Cambourne Parish Council whitewashes my complaints

Having put in complaints about 5 Parish Councillors on Cambourne Parish Council I wasn't amazed at the outcome. A complete whitewash.

This is the text of the report: (My Comments)

The Parish received a complaint against five councillors stating that they  had not updated their declarations of interest to show changes of circumstance or missed information that should have been added.

It is the Councillors responsibility to ensure that their Register of Interest is current and up to date.

After careful consideration of the details of the complaint, that there was some lack of understanding and the necessity to keep their Register of Interests up to date was not made clear (It couldn't be clearer. Obviously ignorance of the law IS an excuse) the Parish Clerk would suggest the following actions taken to resolve the issues raised.

1. To ensure all Councillors Register of Interest are up to date copies have been circulated so we can ensure all are up to date. The Parish Office will check to ensure all forms are returned and will be checked to see if the relevant information has been updated. (so far only Simon Crocker has updated his RoI)

2. The template of the agenda for full Council and Committee meetings is to be changed so that there is a note reminding Councillors that it is there responsibility to keep their register of interest up to date in line with the code of conduct. (Hasn't happened yet)

3. The Parish Council web site will be updated to show a link to member’s register of interest. (The law requires it is published on the Parish Council website)

4. When new councillors attend the Parish Office for their induction meeting the Parish Clerk will ensure the importance of ensuring the register of interest is kept up to date in line with the Councils
Code of Conduct. (Should be happening already)

5. After every ordinary election year Councillor Training will be arranged with one of the items being the importance of recording and maintaining the Register of Interests. (5 is covered by 4 so this is just filler)

RECOMMENDATIONS:
That the Council confirms the actions listed be implemented.

Further to this. I'm being informed that Simon Crocker, Parish Chairman and a Parish Clerk with Cilca qualification: "that there was some lack of understanding and the necessity to keep their Register of Interests up to date was not made clear". Obviously this lack of basic knowledge for a Parish Clerk is worrying for Caldecote Parish Council and as Chairman of Cambourne Parish Council. What else does he not understand? Obviously the 6 months rule to start with.

That is not all. Who voted for this whitewash? Of the 10 members attending 2 had just been co-opted (Cllr Mrs J Sawford and Cllr G Thompson) 4 were not complained against (Cllr J O’Dwyer, Cllr G Cooper, Cllr Mrs R Poulton and Cllr T Hudson) and 4 were complained against (Cllr S Crocker (Chairman), Cllr Ms R Betson, Cllr J Patel and Cllr S Masters).

John Vickery, the Parish Clerk, wrote the report. He is also a member of the Society of Local Council Clerks as is Simon Crocker who is also a Parish Clerk at Caldecote. And 4 of those complained against voted for the outcome. Why were they allowed to do so? Because Simon Crocker was Chairman.

Ron says: I do not know whether the outcome would be different if an Independent person had looked at these complaints. What I do know is this is riddled with conflicts of interests. I doesn't look good when the accused are also part of the jury who decide the fate of the accused.

Stand for Council! Why would you?

Whilst having a go at Councillors could be the way this blog goes, it is worth having an idea of what a councillor does and what they get paid.

The basic allowance for a councillor depends on which authority or council they sit on. At Parish this is zero. District is £4,720. County is £7,700. For District and County there are special allowances for certain jobs extra to the basic councillor job.

As an individual this doesn't seem much for a part-time job.

What does a councillor need to do? The 6 month rule means a councillor must attend one meeting in any 6 month period. If they don't a councillor is disqualified and a notice of vacancy must be issued.

A good councillor will do more than just the basic. Below is taken from the LGA website.

The councillor’s role and responsibilities include:

• representing the ward for which they are elected
• decision-making
• developing and reviewing council policy
• scrutinising decisions taken by the councillors on the executive or cabinet
• regulatory, quasi-judicial and statutory duties
• community leadership and engagement.

Most councillors hold regular drop-in surgeries each month. Surgeries are a chance for residents to meet you and discuss their problems or concerns. You may also need to spend time visiting constituents in their homes. On top of this you will be dealing with letters, emails and phone calls from constituents. When dealing with casework or council business you may need to meet with council staff. These meetings, and any visits to council offices, may need to take place during the working day.

Then there are council and scrutiny meetings. Scrutiny is the crucial process of looking at the work and decisions of the executive. As well as the close examination of councillors, it can also involve the community and interested parties.

Handled well, scrutiny procedures can stimulate real local involvement in how the council manages and delivers its business.

Councillors may also sit on quasi-judicial committees, for example the planning committee, which takes non-political decisions on planning applications. The number and length of these meetings varies from council to council. If you are a member of a political party you will also be expected to attend political group meetings, party training and other events.

All the above sounds good. Lots of reading. Just not attending meetings but preparing for meetings is part of the job. With most District and County Council meetings taking place during the daytime and a few in the evening this makes doing this job hard to do whilst in full time employment.

Also these jobs are elected which takes time, effort and money to achieve, if it can be achieved.

Same goes for Parish Council. Whilst their meetings are in the evening from 7pm onwards this is for the few not the many. My job doesn't allow me to be there on a Tuesday evening when the Parish Council normally meets.

Whilst I may have a go at Councillors about their decisions, motives and political ethos I do so from the idea that they should be praised for being elected and putting time and effort into being a councillor.