Icklesham Parish Council

Reply by Cllr Comotto to comments in Rye Observer by Cllr Maynard of Rother

2012-01-27T17:00:00.002Z

It is clear from Cllr Maynard’s remarks in last week’s Rye Observer that Rother is determined not to learn anything from the recent appeal tribunal judgements. He seems to be arguing that the score was 2-1 to Rother. But Rother’s two goals actually relate to one and the same event, which was that I did not declare a prejudicial interest and failed to leave the room. This is hardly in the same league as Rother’s attempt to suppress the right of councillors to freedom of speech and to engage in political activity, which would have had national ramifications.

Cllr Maynard is understandably keen to deflect public attention from Rother’s fundamental legal error. But he is grasping at straws by seeking to derive comfort from the judgement against me. Consider what the appeal tribunal actually said, which was that my action was “not a serious breach [of the councillors’ code] and no consequences flowed from it”. In other words, the breaches to which Cllr Maynard attaches so much importance were technical and not material. That is why the tribunal overturned Rother’s sanction, even though this was only a censure. Even a censure was felt to be a “disproportionate sanction in the particular circumstances”.

Rother would like to believe that I was “attempting to use [my] position to improperly advantage [myself]” by failing to declare a prejudicial interest. Most members of the public will assume that a “prejudicial interest” is a financial one and indeed that is what Rother tried to argue. But the tribunal rejected Rother’s argument and stated explicitly that my interest was not financial. Moreover, the tribunal highlighted the fact that I had made “full disclosure of [my] interest and involvement” in the local not-for-profit organisation being discussed, by declaring a personal interest.

The point also needs to be made that I breached the code by failing to leave the room during a confidential meeting of Icklesham Parish Council to discuss a course of action which the law does not allow councils to take! In other words, the breach was not only technical but also hypothetical!

Cllr Maynard’s conclusion is that Rother has a duty to investigate complaints against councillors. I would not disagree but I would argue that Rother also has a duty, before spending tax-payers’ money, to exercise judgement and commonsense by determining whether complaints are vexatious and therefore unlikely to be proven if pursued. It failed to do so in Winchelsea, which means that, at the end of the day, all that Rother has to show for over £10,000 of tax-payers’ money is a technical (and hypothetical) breach of the councillors’ code of conduct.

As for Cllr Maynard wish that councillors with different opinions should keep a “low profile”, I bet he does! The one-party state that is Rother District Council rolls on.

Winchelsea ward councillors report in Rye Observer 27-Jan-2012

2012-01-27T16:59:00.002Z

We’ve been rather quiet in 2011. The reason has been the vast amount of time that we have had to devote to fighting false allegations made, in February 2010, by councillors from the other wards of Icklesham Parish Council to Rother District Council’s Standard Committee. This story has already featured in the pages of the Observer, so there is no need to repeat it here. But one aspect merits elaboration: the subject of the parish council meeting in August 2009, which was the origin of the complaint against Cllr Comotto. This was a proposal by the chairman and some other councillors that the parish council should sue the Wincheslea website www.winchelsea.net (with which Cllr Comotto is involved) for defaming Icklesham Parish Council by referring to "a history of incompetent chairmen" and "a dysfunctional council”.

It subsequently emerged that local councils (and indeed central government) do not have the right to sue for defamation! Indeed, this is a basic principle of law, designed to protect freedom of speech. How did Icklesham Parish Council ever come to consider such a proposal?

We have tried to find out, but it has not been easy, not least because Icklesham Parish Council no longer has any of the relevant papers in its files! This is not the first time that official papers relating to a contentious issue have gone missing at Icklesham. However, from another source, we learned that the initial legal advice was obtained by an Icklesham ward councillor from an anonymous acquaintance (for all we know, this could have been a man in the pub, perhaps even the same man whose advice some years ago almost got the parish council prosecuted for VAT evasion).

A group of Icklesham councillors then consulted the Sussex Association of Local Councils (SALC). SALC say that their policy is not to give advice to individual councillors, only to councils (or clerks). They seem to have made an exception on this occasion. SALC have refused to answer further questions on their role but we know that they consulted their solicitors, Hedleys, a firm specialising in local authority law. Hedleys deny advising the council to sue for defamation but they did draft a letter for the council to send out which makes this threat. SALC did not spot Hedley’s error.

The proposal to sue the Winchelsea website was then placed, as a “confidential” item, on the agenda of the August 2009 council meeting. August council meetings are supposed to be only for the signing of cheques. Why could the council not wait until September? Was it because Winchelsea councillors had indicated that they might not be able to attend the August meeting? And then there was the agenda item. This was vague and made no mention of the proposal to sue. The resolution was tabled at the meeting. There can be no doubt that the intention was to keep Winchelsea councillors in the dark. So, when other councillors discovered that we had learned of the secret proposal, they openly protested that we should have been allowed to prepare ourselves for the discussion!

After an acrimonious debate, during which it became apparent that whatever legal advice had been received by certain councillors had been incomplete and not well understood, the council decided to delegate decisions to sue for defamation to two councillors and the clerk. The proposed delegation of powers (not to mention the vagueness of the agenda) was probably illegal. Given that a decision to sue could cost the council many thousands of pounds, it was certainly highly imprudent.

So, here we are, two years on. The text which so upset some members of Icklesham Parish Council, and which snowballed into the Standards Committee fiasco which has just ended, is still on the Winchelsea website. This includes the reference to the often “dysfunctional behaviour” of Icklesham Parish Council. Who can argue with that now?

Rother not to appeal against appeal in Winchelsea freedom of speech case

2012-01-15T13:16:00.003Z

The Standards Committee of Rother District Council met on 11 January 2012 to consider whether to appeal against the judgement which comprehensively and utterly overturned Rother's ruling that Winchelsea councillors had breached the Councillors' Code of Conduct. As the Standards Committee could find no error in law in the appeal judgement, they decided that they had no grounds to contest it.

Rother seemed inclined to heap the blame for their decisive legal defeat on the solicitor they had employed (at a cost of some £6,500) to investigate the allegations against Winchelsea councillors by other Icklesham Parish Councillors. She was accused of failing to draw the attention of Rother to the freedom of speech issues raised by the case.

But why should the investigator take all the blame for ignoring a fundamental human right like freedom of speech, when the Rother sub-committee which ruled on the complaints against Winchelsea councillors included two solicitors (the Chairman and Rother's legal adviser)? And why did no one notice the issue of freedom of speech when it had been clearly flagged up to both the investigator and the sub-committee by Winchelsea councillors?

It also needs to be pointed out that the investigator's case against Winchelsea councillors rested primarily on a series of allegations that they had made untruthful and misleading statements about Icklesham Parish Council. In other words, her contention was that Winchelsea councillors had acted disreputably because they had lied. One can see why the investigator may have thought that freedom of speech was irrelevant.

The investigator's real failure was that she ignored evidence which destroyed the allegations that Winchelsea councillors had lied. Her failure may have been, in part, because she did not have an adequate understanding of parish council matters such as Local Action Plans (LAPs), despite the fact that they were at the heart of the complaints.

But the Rother sub-committee is even more at fault in these respects. It was given the same evidence against the allegations as the investigator but also heard that evidence confirmed, in person and in no uncertain terms, by the former Clerk to Icklesham Parish Council. Yet, when confronted with these facts at the sub-committee hearing, the Chairman interrupted the evidence and abruptly shifted the goalposts, stating that it was irrelevant whether the statement by Winchelsea councillors were true or not, what was at issue was whether their language was intemperate.

Ironically, by switching the case for the prosecution from the issue of truthfulness to the issue of expression, the Chairman himself brought the issue of freedom of speech into consideration. In the landmark Livingstone case (2006) --- ignored by the Rother sub-committee --- the judge said that, "The burden is on the [the person seeking to interfere with the right] to justify interference with freedom of speech. However offensive and undeserving of protection the appellant’s outburst may have appeared to some, it is important that any individual knows that he can say what he likes, provided it is not unlawful, unless there are clear and satisfactory reasons within the terms of Article 10(2) to render him liable to sanctions".

But even if the Rother sub-committee ignored the law, why did they not exercise commonsense? What reasonable person believes that the words "sham" and "ambush" are intemperate language and worthy of extended and costly consideration by a semi-judicial tribunal?

The Rother sub-committee, like their investigator, is also guilty of failing to understand parish LAPs. As noted, these were at the heart of the allegations against Winchelsea councillors. During the sub-committee, the Chairman expressed confusion over terms such as LAPs, LATs and Quality Parish Councils. He also expressed a lack of interest.

What indisputably breached Winchelsea councillors' right to freedom of speech was the sub-committee's opinion that councillors cannot question and lobby against council decisions, whether or not those decisions are flawed or even improper. This doctrine was expounded very firmly at the sub-committee hearing by Rother's solicitor and strongly supported by the Chairman and the District Council representative. Only the parish council representative was uneasy about this attempt to suppress freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, it would appear that Rother's Standards Committee has learnt nothing from the appeal tribunal judgement against them. They have not felt it necessary to consider how they came to be guilty of such a gross misinterpretation of the law. At least one member, Rother Councillor Roger Bird, is in complete denial and resolutely rejects the appeal tribunal judgement. According to Cllr Bird, "The issue showed the lottery of going to judgement. It comes down to the spin of a coin." Was this an insight into how Rother reached its now discredited decision against Winchelsea councillors?

RC

Icklesham Parish Council meeting, 9 January 2012

2012-01-10T12:40:00.004Z

Winchelsea matters

County Cllr Glazier reported on the complaint received from Cllr Comotto and other residents of Winchelsea about the shanty town erected in the middle of Winchelsea by Southern Railway as part of the bus service replacing the train service while the Marshlink is closed. As usual, Cllr Glazier did not see what could be done. Cllr Comotto pointed out that East Sussex Highways Authority, which had issued the licence to Southern Railway to use the verge, felt that they had been misled. He asked that Highways therefore withdraw the licence. Cllr Glazier was not interested (as in most Winchelsea matters). However, the council agreed to write to Southern Railway to put forward the objections raised by residents.

After ten years, possibly longer, the council has finally appointed a contractor to clean bus shelters and benches! Actually, it appointed one last year but they were unable to do the job. The money for cleaning has been on the council's budget for more than 10 years but has never been spent.

The council finally agreed to take ownership from the Community Office of the four interpretation boards and two map boards in Winchelsea , while leaving the copyright with the Community Office. The council already insures and maintains the boards. Cllr Bronsdon was very unhappy about the copyright issue, muttering about "power and control".

The council rejected the attempt by the soon-to-depart PCSO to extend the Community Speed Watch to Icklesham and Winchelsea Beach. Cllrs Bronsdon, Stanford and Sutton were particularly hostile to the idea. Cllr Bronsdon was outraged by statements that Icklesham Parish Council did not support Community Speed Watch in Winchelsea. He was adamant that the council had always supported Community Speed Watch but not the use of speed guns, while Cllr Stanford said she supported Community Speed Watch but not the "community" bit. In other words, they support Community Speed Watch but not the Community or Speed Watch aspects! The chairman reiterated his fears that volunteers would be assaulted, ignoring the experience of Winchelsea and the rest of the country. Of course, in the past, he has been keen on Winchelsea volunteers coming to Icklesham, so it seems that his real objection is that he might have to do some work himself. Other councillors made it clear that they should not be called upon. In the end, however, there was not enough opposition to vote down the proposal and the decision was deferred until the Annual Parish Meeting.

Other wards

The council has received several complaints from residents of Winchelsea Beach about the lack of consultation about the decision to erect a row of bollards to keep vehicles off Harbour Field, which they thought were unsightly. This is the second set of complaints about lack of consultation by the council in Winchelsea Beach (the previous being about plans to erect a basket-ball hoop). The project had anyway come to grief because of the difficulty experienced by the contractor in fixing the bollards into the ground, which proved to be very stony and contains the foundations of Smeatons Harbour. The contractor also accidently severed a gas main, which was not on the plans of the gas company. Several residents attended the meeting to to ask for the restoration of a hedge. The clerk had the guts to admit that the bollards were the wrong option, given the nature of the ground, and the council had failed to consult residents directly affected. The council agreed to his proposal to switch to a hedge, protected pro tem by a stock fence.

Better consultation was pledged in the future. It will be interesting to see if future public consultations by the council come to much. When Winchelsea residents were consulted on turning off the footlights at midnight for financial and environmental reasons, although the response was 2:1 in favour and over 60 households responded, the decision was deferred for another consultation at the Annual Parish Meeting (where it will be easier for unrepresentative groups to influence the decision).

An illuminating debate broke out on proposals for Icklesham Recreation Ground. Cllr Warren has been organising consultations to decide what needs to be done. He believes public opinion is in favour of a childrens' play area. Cllr Merricks wants a hard surface, among other things, for hockey and badminton! Icklesham does not have and never has had a hockey team; and one supposes that badminton is still played indoors. One could have been forgiven for thinking that Cllr Merricks' agenda was to squeeze out the Icklesham Casuals football team. As in the past, she had a go at them for using the pitch in bad weather and only having one resident player (Cllr S Turner looked uneasy at this point, as he runs the Winchelsea Cricket Club, which also has only one resident player). No councillors did not seem worried by the fact that they are making plans for children with no knowledge of the number and age profile of the children for whom they are making plans!
A proposal has been made to buy high visibility vests for councillors to wear when they are out on council business and ID cards to prove who they are. The question was posed, where are councillors proposing to go that requires high visibility vests. The decision was deferred.

Two community noticeboards have been purchase at a cost of £280 for Icklesham and Rye Habour. Readers will recall that a noticeboard to serve the isolated Tanyard Lane community in Winchelsea was rejected by the council.

The council now has an Asset Register. It should have had one years ago but only the current clerk has managed to produce one.

When the contract for grass cutting came up, one contractor quoted £4,646, some £2,900 cheaper than the nearest rival. Some councillors were suspicious and wanted to go for the next highest. All the firms quoting were confirmed as reputable. In the end, the council was persuaded to go for the cheapest quote. Those opposed fretted about the quality of service and wanted safeguards. But all the council has to do is ensure its contract is clear, inspect the work and withhold payment or repudiate the contract if performance is inadequate. Cllr Bronsdon continued to grumble about the anonymous system of tendering, even though it is laid down in council rules. Winchelsea costs just £203 to mow, just 4.4% of the total mowing budget. Icklesham costs £767 (16.5%), Winchelsea Beach £2,293 (49.4%) and Rye Harbour £1,382 (29.7%) .

Cllr Merricks proposed that the council spend £250 on registering the playing fields with the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge in order to protect them in perpetuity. Cllr Bronsdon was unhappy with this on the grounds that it would stop them ever being built on! Other councillors were unconvinced that the protection offered was any greater than the covenants already on the fields. Further information is to be sought but it is not clear what else can be added to that already before the council.
The issue of rural superfast broadband came to the council. Cllrs P Turner and Warren had prepared rather good reports. It was a shame that many councillors appeared not to have read them. Councillors were asked, as individuals, to try to get residents to measure broadband speeds in their villages and pass the information, before the end of January, to East Sussex.

Disquiet over the conduct of council meetings

The meeting ran until 21:50, which meant it lasted 2 hours 35 minutes. This is becoming the norm. Best practice is that council meetings should last no longer than 2 hours, partly in order not to deter members of the public (remember how left-wing trade unionists in the 1970s used to stretch meetings out over hours in order to ensure that only militants would stay for important votes?).

There is some unhappiness about the duration of meetings but councillors seem inclined to blame the length of the agenda. However, the real reasons are weak chairmanship and the inability of councillors to work efficiently in plenary session.

The council does not follow the rules of debate set out in its own (recently re-issued) Standing Orders, which prescribe the order in which councillors should speak, the duration and rights of reply. Public questions are allowed to overrun, not least because, when several members of the public attend in order to support or object to a proposal, they are allowed to repeat themselves. One of the District Councillors is allowed to go on and on, even when it is plain that he has nothing new to say. Last night, the formal council meeting did not get going until 19:53. The chairman allows councillors unhappy with the outcome of a vote to re-open the debate after the vote has been taken: it is clear that some councillors try to change the sense of decisions. Last night, one councillor tried to substitute a different type of fence for the one agreed by the council. Another councillor insists on having the last word, even when the rules of debate leave that to the proposer of a resolution or amendment. And when that particular councillor feels she is losing the argument, she tries to talk over and down other councillors, as though she is trying to wear them down. Councillors are also allowed to open discussions on items put on the agenda for information only.

Another problem is that, although the clerk provides written reports, it is clear that some councillors do not read them and the council consequently wastes time going over what has already been explained.

A number of councillors simply cannot follow discussions. For example, last night, when councillors were asked to locate telephone cabinets in their villages as part of the rural broadband project, one councillor happily asserted that BT would provide that information if they were phoned and had done so to her husband. In fact, what BT had provided was download-upload speeds. Sometimes, the short attention span has serious consequences. Thus, the failure of a councillor to follow a budget discussion led to the council spending some £1,100 on recording equipment.

It is of course the job of the chairman to ensure that that the rules of debate are followed and that meetings run efficiently in other respects. He is patently not doing this.

RC

Winchelsea councillors win appeal in victory for freedom of speech

2011-12-22T22:15:00.006Z

We've been rather quiet in 2011. This blog explains what has been occupying us.

In February 2010, Cllr Bronsdon of Rye Harbour, supported by the other councillors from Icklesham, Rye Harbour and Winchelsea Beach wards --- Cllrs Bates, Drew, Horsman, Lyward, Merricks, Moore, Stanford, Sutton and Thompson --- lodged a complaint against the three ward councillors from Winchelsea -- Cllrs Chishick, Comotto and Terry --- for criticisng the adequacy of the Local Action Plan (LAP) questionnaire provided by Rother District Council and adopted by Icklesham Parish Council, protesting about the way in which Icklesham Parish Council had forced the questionnaire on Winchelsea, and calling on residents to boycott the questionnaire. He claimed that their actions had brought Icklesham Parish Council into disrepute, contrary to the Councillors' Code of Conduct.

A separate and very lengthy complaint was also made by Cllr Stansford of Rye Habour ward against Cllr Comotto alleging bullying of other councillors and the parish clerk, and failure to declare an interest at a meeting in August 2009.

All Winchelsea councillors were accused of making misleading and untruthful statements.

It is worth noting here that the August 2009 parish council meeting was held to discuss (in secret) a proposal to sue the Wincheslea website www.winchelsea.net for defaming Icklesham Parish Council by referring to "a history of incompetent chairmen" and "a dysfunctional council". The curious circumstances surrounding this meeting will be reviewed in another blog. Suffice it to say here that councils do not have the right to sue for defamation, as judges have felt that the threat of such action (even where it was unlikely to succeed) would intimidate critics and have a "chilling effect on democracy"! So, the whole discussion was pointless. However, under the Code of Conduct, Cllr Comotto should have declared a prejudicial interest, rather than just a personal interest, and left the meeting, as he is involved with the Winchelsea website. Cllr Comotto apologised for this error but argued that the breach was immaterial, given the pointlessness of the debate and the fact that he would have been aware of the resolution, whether or not he had attended, which meant he could have derived no material advantage.

Rother District Council commissioned a firm of solicitors to investigate the complaints. During this investigation, further complaints were made against Cllr Comotto. It is not possible to reveal these complaints as Standards Committees operate largely in secret but it is possible to say that the additional allegations made by Cllr Merricks would, if they had been made publicly, have been libellous. In the event, all the complaints bar two were dismissed by the investigator but she did conclude that the three Winchelsea councillors had brought Icklesham Parish Council into disrepute by making untruthful statements about the parish council's handling of the LAP. She also judged the language used by the councillors to have been intemperate.

At the hearing held by the Rother Standards Committee, the evidence provided to the investigator, by Cllr Stanford, purporting to show that Icklesham Parish Council had been preparing a LAP since 2005 --- and that Winchelsea councillors had therefore made untruthful and misleading statements about the suspicious suddenness of the council's proposals and demands --- was shown to be utterly incorrect. At this point, the Standards Committee decided that the issue was not the untruthful of statements but the intemperate language. The words that appeared to cause concern were "ambush" and "sham". On this basis, the Standards Committee concluded that the Winchelsea councillors had breached the Code of Conduct. The sanction imposed was a censure.

Winchelsea councillors appealed against the Standard Committee's decision on the grounds that the judge infringed their right to freedom of speech and obstructed their duty to defend their electorate against poor council decisions, and that they had not made untruthful or misleading statements and had not used intemperate language. On 12 December, an appeals tribunal agreed with the Winchelsea councillors, citing a long list of legal precedents, and quashed the judgment of the Rother Standards Committee. The judgement is worth reading:

"The Tribunal has determined that the three Appellants did not fail to follow the provisions of the Code because:
1 They were legitimately exercising their right to free speech.
2 The language employed by them had not been hostile, intemperate, ill-judged or misleading.
3 They were entitled to write to local residents informing them of matters they considered of particular relevance. The councillors’ actions were within the legitimate boundary of a local councillor defending local interests.
4 Residents had not been instructed to do anything unlawful and it was open to recipients to accept or reject the guidance issued by the councillors as to how to show their opposition to adoption of a parish-wide questionnaire.
5 The Code does not preclude a councillor from opposing council policy provided he uses legitimate and reasonable means. Local councillors are often involved in, or indeed lead, local opposition to locally sensitive issues. For instance, a planning matter which has a far greater impact on a defined locality than the rest of the district. This will, of necessity, bring councillors into opposition with local or party policy."

The tribunal could not have been clearer. The judgement is also forthright about the right of councillors to freedom of speech and the nature of the democratic political acitivity. It also made crystal clear that Winchelsea councillors had not been untruthful or misleading.

In addition, the tribunal dismissed, as inappropriate, the censure imposed on Cllr Comotto for failing to declare a prejudicial conflict of interest.

The question that need to be asked, in view of this judgement, is why did Rother, despite employing two solicitors and spending well over £10,000 of tax-payers' money, not see this one coming and allowed the complaint to proceed? As the tribunal made clear, there is a well-developed case law on the underlying issues.

And Rother's blunder is a serious one because, if they had won, it is difficult to see how genuine political activity could have continued in local government or how it could ever have been held to account. How did this happen? Perhaps, Rother has been a virtual one-party state for so long that it has just lost the hang of democracy. Some of the statements made by the legal adviser to the Standards Committee revealed a very restrictive view of elective democracy and the role of councillors. In effect, Rother's lawyer implied a collective responsibility on councillors that meant they could not seek to reverse decisions of their council, even where they considered these decisions to be utterly wrong, and could not campaign against unacceptable policies even in an election.

Rother also needs to reflect on its own undeclared conflict of interest. The first complaint centred on crticism of the questionnaire which Rother produced! This makes them something of an interested party.

And what about Icklesham Parish Council? Who can dispute its dysfunctional behaviour now? There have now been three complaints to the Standards Committee against Cllr Comotto. In response to the first (by 11 other councillors), Cllr Comotto was merely asked to send fewer e-mails to the then parish clerk. In response to the second complaint (by Cllr Merricks), it was explained that Cllr Comotto had been conducting normal political activity. And now, despite throwing a huge quantity of mud at all three Winchelsea councillors, a third vexatious complaint has also failed. The net result has been to waste everybody's time and provide employment to lawyers. No wonder, Eric Pickles is junking Standards Committees!"
RC

Why does Icklesham Parish Council still not understand Annual Parish Meetings?

2011-05-18T23:37:00.001+01:00

On 23 May (delayed from 16 May), Icklesham Parish Council will be holding its Annual Parish Assembly or Meeting. What Icklesham have never been understood is that an APM is intended to be a meeting of the community, not the council.

The agenda is therefore supposed to be set by the community, not the council. Guidance to councils suggests that organisations from within the parish be invited to speak about what they have been doing. This is done very successfully in parishes like Sedlescombe and at the Annual Town Meeting in Winchelsea. It is also suggested that a particular local issue, something important or controversial, be included on the agenda to attract public interest.

The special nature of APMs has been explained to Icklesham Parish Council again and again by Winchelsea councillors but to no avail. It is doubtful whether most Icklesham parish councillors know the difference between the APM and the council's AGM.

The consequence is that Icklesham APMs are pointless affairs, attended by few residents (audiences are largely councillors, their spouses and speakers). This year looks as if it will be the same. No community groups have been invited to make presentations and there are no real parish issues on the agenda. Instead, there will be the usual reports by the chairman, clerk and the County and District councillors. The National Trust's local Property Manager has been invited to speak about the work of the Trust in Winchelsea and will give exactly the same presentation as he gave in Winchelsea in May and again in November of last year. There will be a presentation from the Rural Rother Trust, a local small grants charity, and from Rye Community Transport, whose organiser happens to live in Rye Harbour. Where are the sports clubs, societies, allotment-holders, neighbourhood watches, emergency groups, the local PCSO, youth clubs, village halls, churches, local businesses, etc? Where is the discussion of speeding traffic (the number one problem identified by residents) or the Diamond Jubilee (the big local event next year)?

Icklesham Parish Council meeting 16 May 2011

2011-05-18T08:52:00.002+01:00

This was the first meeting of the new council after the election of 5 May 2011.

The first real business was to co-opt two members, one for Icklesham and one for the Beach, because too few people stood for election in those wards. Mr Nick Warren, who stood in the District election, was co-opted for Icklesham ward. Mr Peter Turner, defeated in the Winchelsea election, was co-opted for the Beach. Mr Turner has been a councillor in the past. In 1999, he stood for election in Winchelsea, was defeated and co-opted for Icklesham. On that occasion, he was also made chairman on the same night, although he did not remain on the council for the full term.

The new clerk, Steve Foreman, has hit the ground running and has already made big strides in sorting out the administrative confusion and backlog of work at Icklesham Parish Council. Among other things, he is proposing multi-year financial planning. This is obviously sensible and is envisaged in the council's own Financial Regulations.It was previously proposed by Winchelsea councillors but rejected by the council.

Most dramatically, the clerk has cut the fat out of the budget by placing £44,647 out of the total £111,386 (40%) into a reserve. We were not sure about this proposal at the meeting, as we regard 40% as an excessive percentage (see below). Upon consideration, however, we accept that this is probably a sensible move, as it should stop the money being frittered away in ways for which it was not budgeted. Nevertheless, it is a serious indictment of the budget-setting process at Icklesham Parish Council that 40% of the budget should in effect be frozen on only the second month of the financial year!

At the next budget-setting, reserves need to be reduced to a sensible sum. 40% is far too high. In the last financial year, only five budget items, totalling £3,506, went over budget. Over the previous four years, aggregate gross overspends ranged between £1,111 and £6,016. So reserves of £44,647 are way too high. Tax-payers' money should not sit in the bank account of the council!

The clerk is following guidance which suggests reserves should be 25-100% of annual expenditure.However, the guidance also suggests that the figure be based on an assessment of the risk of overspending (which the clerk is indeed intending to do). We think it questionable that any reserves need to be held against items such as insurance, salaries, electricity bills for footlights, etc, as these are fixed in advance. And as explained, analysis of previous budgets shows that the risk of overspending on other budget items is low, while the risk of an unexpected drop in income is virtually nil (revenue has been greater or lower than the budgeted amount by no more than about £70). It also needs to be borne in mind that Icklesham Parish Council has underspent its budget by 20-53% in recent years, so we already have massive de facto reserves.

Excess reserves should be returned to tax-payers next year by a reduction in the precept. Icklesham stood out from the 33 parishes of Rother this year by imposing a 21% tax increase, while 21 others froze or cut taxes, and the other 11 imposed modest increases of between £143 and £2100. Indeed, the £16,133 hike imposed by Icklesham was greater than the sum of all the other 11 increases (£11,000).

Interestingly, the Chairman justified this year's 21% tax hike by claiming that, because Icklesham Parish was composed of four villages, it was more expensive to run than other parishes. We agree that the size and diversity of Icklesham Parish creates diseconomies of scale (administration has to be quadruplicated). But that fact does not explain why tax had to be raised by 21% this year. There are four other parishes in Rother which are warded. Three of these other multi-village parishes froze their tax: one (Ticehurst) cut theirs by almost £14,000.

After the meeting, a member of the public commented on the fact that the meeting was attended by the Clerk and Deputy Clerk, and asked why Icklesham Parish was paying for the time and travel expenses of two clerks. Good point!

Parish council election on 4 May 2011

2011-04-08T13:27:00.000+01:00

Candidates have been announced for the election on 4 May. The only contested election, as usual, will be in Winchelsea ward. We, the incumbent councillors --- Ben Chishick, Richard Comotto, Mike Terry --- will be standing against Steve and Peter Turner.
The main issues will be the proposal for a separate parish of Winchelsea (we in favour; the Turners against) and Council Tax (we against the increases; the Turners probably unwilling to oppose).
In Icklesham, Rye Harbour and Winchelsea Beach wards, there will yet again be no contested elections. Indeed, Icklesham and Winchelsea Beach cannot find enough candidates, so councillors will have to be co-opted. Rye Harbour cannot find any residents at all to stand for election, so they will continue to be represented by residents of Rye Town and Winchelsea Beach. Not a great advert for loca democracy.

Tax increase 2011/12

2011-04-03T13:07:00.002+01:00

Council tax bills have landed on door mats. The County and District Councils, as well as the Police and Fire authorities, have frozen their tax demands, in line with government guidance. Of the 33 parish and town councils in Rother, 21 have also followed the government by freezing or reducing their tax. Another 11 parish councils in Rother have increased tax by between £145 and £2,130. Icklesham Parish Council stands out by having imposed a hike of £16,133, considerably more than the 11 other parish councils put together (the 11 other parish councils which have increased tax have done so by a total of about £11,000)! Only Winchelsea ward councillors voted against this increase but were outvoted by councillors from Icklesham, Winchelsea Beach and Rye Harbour. Since 2003, Icklesham Parish Council's tax has quadrupled. However, it has always significantly underspent its budget.

January council meeting, part II

2011-02-07T22:09:00.001Z

The headline news in last week’s Rye Observer was that Rye Town Council had decided not to increase next year’s local tax. Well done, Rye!
Across the border, residents will be paying 20% more to Icklesham Parish Council (more than quadrupling the parish tax since the first of us became a councillor in 2003). Ironically, one of the councillors who voted for next year’s tax hike lives in Rye!
Last week, we promised to report on the secret discussion at Icklesham Parish Council in January. Councillors were told that they were not even allowed to mention the subject of the discussion. However, the published agenda stated “staff matters”, which rather blew the gaff. It is also public knowledge that the parish clerk, who joined in May, resigned in November and that the parish council is advertising for a replacement. So, it is fairly obvious what the “staff matter” was about!
We were told that the reason for keeping the matter secret from voters was the right of council employees to confidentiality about the terms of their employment. However, the former parish clerk does not have a problem about discussion of the way the matter was handled.
First, it needs to be made clear that council employees such as clerks are employed by the council as a whole. No individual councillor or group of councillors has the authority to take an employment (or any other) decision on their own. This includes the chairman of the parish council, who has no executive powers and whose function is purely to moderate council meetings. All decisions must be made by the full council or by a committee to whom the full council has specifically delegated powers.
Second, it also needs to be made clear that the vice chairman of a parish council has absolutely no status unless and until the chairman is absent. Otherwise, the vice chairman is just another councillor.
Given this situation, the fact that the events which led to the resignation of the clerk involved the chairman and vice chairman acting alone and without the authority of the council is clearly a matter of concern. But if the clerk was unfairly dismissed, it is the council as a whole and tax-payers who would be penalised. When pressed in December, the chairman of Icklesham Parish Council refused to answer questions from councillors, even in secret session. He claimed that he had been advised by the Sussex Association of Local Councils (SALC) not to discuss the matter, even with councillors and despite the fact that councillors acting collectively as the council are legally the clerk’s employer. He failed to reveal to the council that the clerk had written a resignation letter setting out her side of events until he was specifically asked. He then agreed to copy the letter to all councillors and, when pressed, agreed to copy the advice he claimed to have received from SALC. It should be noted that it is council policy that all such external advice should be requested and taken in written form.
Following the December meeting, we informed the chairman that, unless the council was allowed to discuss the resignation of the clerk at the next meeting, we would use our power to call a special meeting to do just that. It was reluctantly agreed to include the matter in the January agenda.
By the time of the January meeting, councillors had still not been sent a copy of the clerk’s resignation letter nor a copy of the SALC advice as promised. The resignation letter was distributed at the meeting, leaving no time to read and absorb. The SALC advice continued to be withheld. After turning off the council’s expensive recording system, the chairman read a long and detailed statement justifying the actions of himself and the vice chairman. He then refused to answer questions from councillors or provide the council with copies of his statement.
Subsequently, the chairman has supplied copies of e-mails between himself and SALC. They contain no substantive advice.
So, the situation is that an employment problem may have been created by the unauthorised action of the chairman and vice chairman, who usurped the authority of the council, and that the council may as a consequence have been exposed unwittingly to a charge of unfair dismissal. However, the elected councillors are not permitted to know all the facts about the management of an employee for whom they collectively bear the legal responsibility as employer.

Secrecy in government, particularly at local level, is rarely justifiable, even if cloaked in terms of employee confidentiality, but can never justify withholding information from elected representatives. It can too easily be used to hide incompetence, indolence and dishonesty from the public, and avoid the scrutiny that is one of the fundamental safeguards of democracy.

What’s going on at Icklesham Parish Council? How would we know? We’re just elected councillors.
Cllrs Chishick, Comotto and Terry

Icklesham Parish Council planning committee

2011-01-30T19:51:00.002Z

Many residents assume that parish council planning committees are empowered to take decisions on planning applications and many parish councillors (if not most) share this belief. However, parish councils have absolutely no planning powers. All planning decisions (apart from those on strategic infrastructure projects) are taken by the planning committees at District Councils, which are the Local Planning Authorities (LPA). Parish councils are not even “statutory consultees” on planning issues, in other words, the LPA is not obliged to seek their views. The sole planning privilege granted to parish councils is that they have the right to be notified of local applications. Beyond this, parish councils are in the same position as individual residents. To influence a planning decision being made by the LPA, both parish councils and individual residents have to make comments based on material planning considerations, ie points of planning law and policy. Simply supporting or objecting to a particular application is just a waste of everybody’s time.

Icklesham Parish Council’s planning committee has only just been persuaded to stop saying that it “approves” or “rejects” applications, which gave the false impression it was a decision-making body. But it has not been possible to persuade it to offer substantive reasons. However, the most serious failure of Icklesham’s planning committee has been its disinclination to contribute to the formulation of planning policy. This is where parish councils, at least collectively, could make a real difference to planning. Ample opportunities have arisen recently, with the consultations on the Local Development Framework, Conservation Areas and the AONB Management Plan review, and at workshops organised at the last Rother planning seminar. Unfortunately, Icklesham has ignored such opportunities: only Winchelsea ward councillors took part.

Of course, Winchelsea may be more sensitive to planning issues than the other three wards of Icklesham Parish. It is the only Conservation Area in the parish, includes the only Scheduled Ancient Monuments (three of them in fact) and has a unique heritage as a medieval planned town that retains its original layout and landscape setting. It also includes some 120 listed buildings (Rye has about 300).

Given that Winchelsea is a site of such special historical and archaeological interest, a central objective of the parish council planning committee should be conservation in Winchelsea. However, in Icklesham Paish Council, on the matter of planning --- as in many other areas --- there is a kick against Winchelsea. For example, when comments about any planning application in Winchelsea have referred to the Conservation Area, Cllr Bronsdon of Rye Harbour (now the Chairman of the planning committee) has summarily dismissed the Conservation Area as merely a matter of “aesthetics”. That of course is the whole point of Conservation Areas! They are intended to maintain and enhance the special character and appearance of places! And this aim is a material planning consideration and imposes an obligation on all public authorities.

Another ongoing cause for concern has been the policy of ignoring letters objecting to planning applications in Winchelsea if they have not been copied to the parish council, even if they on the Rother website, or have been copied to the ward councillors. Refusing to accept that Winchelsea ward councillors are elected representatives of Winchelsea residents is a tenet of faith among most councillors from other wards and can be dismissed as petty politics, but refusing to acknowledge the existence of letters on planning applications seeks to disenfranchise the whole of Winchelsea.

New depths were plumbed at the planning committee in January. The subject was an application for the conversion of the former gasometer at the end of Hogtrough Lane into holiday accommodation. This site is outside the development boundary but within the Conservation Area, so the proposal raises exceptional issues. The parish council had before them an 11-page letter of objection from a conservation group in Winchelsea. It was a very detailed text, extensively referenced to planning law and obviously the product of much research. But Cllr Bronsdon dismissed the entire letter as being “only” about “heritage” and “planning law”, as though these were irrelevant to planning rather than central to the whole issue! No further reference was made to the letter and none of its arguments were considered.

In addition, the letters of objection on the Rother website were dismissed as being too few to matter, and additional letters, which were waiting to be posted on the Rother website, were brushed aside, even though they had been copied to a Winchelsea councillor. To date, letters have been written by 17 individual residents and three community groups, far more than is usual and a clear indication of local concern. This is in addition to letters from the County Archaeologist, the Environmental Health Officer and the National Trust. None of these letters were brought to the attention of the planning committee or discussed.

On the other hand, the planning committee, most of whose members had to declare a personal interest because they knew the applicant and one had done business with him, accepted without question the applicant’s argument that the proposal would improve the gasometer, which has been allowed to deteriorate into a very poor state. They were presumably unaware or unconcerned that national planning policy disallows such an argument and in fact views the deterioration of historic buildings as undermining the viability of proposals for conversion.

Things got even worse. The planning committee had been asked by a Winchelsea councillor to write to Rother to support a request for a Section 215 notice to be served on the owner of the gasometer to enforce his Conservation Area obligations to maintain the structure. However, the request contained a typo and said “125” rather than “215”, although it was quite clear from the text what a S215 notice was and the planning committee has come across them before. But the Chairman refused to allow the request to be considered or for a correction to be made by amendment.

By the end of the meeting, one could only be thankful that parish councils have no planning powers.

Icklesham Parish Council budget and tax 2011/12

2011-01-02T23:00:00.000Z

Despite the worsening financial circumstances of many residents and calls for restraint from the government, Icklesham Parish Council has approved a 20.6% hike in its tax demand for 2011/12. Since 2003, our parish council tax has quadrupled from £19,000 to almost £95,000. On top of this, IPC has borrowed and spent £40,000 on Icklesham village hall.

Only Winchelsea councillors voted against the tax ramp. Perhaps as a consequence, all new projects for Winchelsea were cut. Only the other three wards will see new spending.

The tax ramp comes despite the fact that IPC has never yet managed to spend its budget. The current council (since 2007) has spent an average of just 71% of budgeted expenditures and a mere 65% of annual income. Thus, parish council tax has been one-third higher than necessary.

IPC carried over £42,000 of unspent funds from last year. The year before, over £55,000. And the year before that, almost £40,000. And these numbers disguise the true situation, because of the switching of sums during the year from projects included in the original budgets to new projects not envisaged when the budgets were drafted.

One argument made in favour of the tax hike was that the sums involved were small when considered per household. The average is about £65. In isolation, many people may consider such a sum to be small. But every penny of money taken from taxpayers should be taken for necessary and planned projects, not sitting idle in the council’s bank account until councillors get around to deciding how to spend it. Such sums must also be considered in the context of other tax bills facing residents, the increasing cost of living and the shrinking real value of wages and pensions.

Another argument to justify the tax ramp was the extra cost of elections this year. In fact, this adds just £6,000 to the bill. The real reason for the large increase is unjustified changes such as the increase in the contingency fund to £10,000.

We were also told that the Sussex Association of Local Councils has urged parishes to increase their budgets to make up for the cuts by the District and County Councils. Unfortunately, none of the planned spending by IPC will tackle areas where other councils have reduced spending.

2011/12 Budget (unless otherwise stated, changes are from 2007/08 to 2009/10)

Chairman’s allowance: £300 (unchanged). IPC is one of the few councils in Rother to pay this. Only introduced in 2005/06. At least, it has been reduced from £450 and is no longer paid to the chairman upfront but is claimed against expenses. However, this year, the chairman has used his allowance to buy flowers for a former councillor’s widow and lunch for a guide and his wife who took some councillors on a private tour. It has previously been used to buy leaving presents for retiring councillors and clerk, money which should have come from councillors’ own pockets

Clerks’ allowances: £1,300 (unchanged). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £251 a year or 19%.

Clerks’ travel expenses: £1,800 (+38%). Only the public sector pays employees to travel to work and IPC only has to pay because it prefers to employ clerks living outside the parish.

Clerks’ salaries: £23,376 (+10%). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £1,568 a year or 8%.

Training £1,200 (+140%). For new councillors next year, but the training budget has been underspent by an average of £925 a year or 78% (07/08-10/11). Yet IPC refused £150 for training for a Winchelsea councillor this year.

Audit fee: £1,000 (unchanged).

Clerks’ office expenses: £2,400 (unchanged).

Elections: £8,000 (+300%). This sum should have been accumulated gradually over previous years.

Hire of village halls: £400 (-20%). IPC continues to have to pay for hall hire in all wards other than Rye Harbour, despite making an annual grant to all the halls. The cost should be deducted from the grants (£6,000 next year) .

Insurance: £2,000 (unchanged).

Legal expenses: £1,500 (+100%). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £575 a year or 92% (07/08-10/11). A disguised contingency fund, as there is no regular legal work and free legal advice is given by SALC and NALC.

Subscriptions: £1,000 (+18%). Rise due to unnecessary new subscription to National Playing Fields Association.

Allotment maintenance: £1,500 (+33%).  This budget item has been underspent by an average of £1,107 a year or 55%. Another disguised contingency fund: planned work is separately budgeted.

Bus shelter repair: £2,000.  This budget item has been underspent by an average of £1,057 a year or 60%. Yet, some bus shelters have been in a poor state for a while.

Grass cutting: £8,000 (+14%). Largely Icklesham, Winchelsea Beach.

Playground maintenance: £1,500 (+33%).  This budget item has been underspent by an average of £2,608 a year or 92%. It is unclear why the maintenance budget should be so large given that most playground equipment is new (IPC has spent over £52,000 on new playground equipment since 03/04 and has budgeted to spend another £9,500). Another disguised contingency fund.

Playground inspection: £400 (unchaanged).

Rubbish clearance: £2,500 (unchanged). Largely Winchelsea Beach.

Seat cleaning: £500 (new). We support this, having tried to get benches cleaned for several years.

Small works: £3,000 (unchanged). General contingency fund for repairs.

Streetlighting electricity: £1,900 (+6%). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £365 a year or 18%.

Streetlighting maintenance: £1,442 (unchanged). Carried over unspent from last year.

Tree maintenance: £1,500 (+200%). Seems a lot given that IPC has this year spent/budgeted £4,300 on a comprehensive programme of inspection and maintenance (proposed by Winchelsea councillors to stop the waste of money on sporadic ad hoc inspections, the reports of which kept getting lost).

Emptying dog bins: £1,200 (-60%). Winchelsea Beach. An exceptional and welcome cut-back.

Contingency Fund: £10,000 (+33%). This rise was justified on the basis of unsubstantiated advice. However, financial analysis suggests a figure of £4,000 would be more than adequate, as IPC has underspent its budgets by an average of £24,600 a year. IPC also has a separate £3,000 contingency fund for small works and several other items in the budget are disguised contingency funds. IPC also has an insurance policy to cover extreme events.

Pear Tree Marsh allotment: £1,800 (+80%). Clearing a blocked ditch. IPC has refused to roll over the unspent money in this year’s budget to clear the derelict areas in this allotment.

Direction sign, Icklesham: £500 (new). Unnecessary.

Cost of grant to Icklesham Memorial Trust: £3,118 (unchanged). This is the annual cost of paying back a £40,000 grant given to Icklesham village hall and funded by borrowing for 20 years.

Community noticeboard, Icklesham: £800 (new). Hardly a priority. There is no need given that there is a parish noticeboard and one on a bus shelter. In contrast, IPC refused to release £169 budgeted this year for a noticeboard on the Strand bus shelter for residents of Tanyard Lane.

Repair of Smeatons Lane, Winchelsea Beach: £1,000. Smeatons Lane is apparently owned by IPC and money has to be spent every year, £3,200 this year alone.

Fencing of Smeatons Lane, Winchelsea Beach: £4,000. Some £2,700 has already been spent replacing a collapsed fence along Smeatons Lane with posts to stop cars parking on council property. The new money is to install a new gate, fix the gate posts and replace the remaining fence. The gate, one gate post and remaining fence are not in need of replacement. This is unnecessary, particularly in current circumstances.

Fingerpost sign, Rye Harbour: £750 (new). To the lifeboat hut. No demonstrated need. Hardly a priority.

Gateway sign, Rye Harbour: £1,400 (new). An isolated and relativlely cost/ineffective speed calming measure.

Flagpole, Rye Harbour: £2,000 (unchanged). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £1,150 a year or 92% (03/04-10/11). Why is IPC spending any money on this flagpole?

Community noticeboard, Rye Harbour: £800 (new). Hardly a priority. There is no need given that there is a parish noticeboard and one at the shop. In contrast, IPC refused to release £169 budgeted for a noticeboard on the Strand bus shelter for residents of TanyardLane.

Youth projects: £1,000 (unchanged). This budget item has been underspent by an average of £1,000 a year or 67%. No projects planned. Another disguised contingency fund. Yet a request for money for a youth project in Winchelsea this year was refused.

Donation fund: £1,000 (unchanged). This budget item has been underspent by £333 a year or 40%.

Grant to Rye Community Transport: £1,500 (unchanged).

Grants to churches: £1,200 (+20%). Money towards maintenance of churchyards, but IPC does not know how much the churches spend. Each gets 25% whereas the cost differs widely between churches. When the grant was divided pro rata with costs, other wards objected to St Thomas’s receiving a larger share.

Grants to village halls: £6,000 (+50%). When IPC had a fund to which village halls could apply, they rarely bothered. Now money is given out each year whether or not the village halls need money, and IPC does not ask how the money is spent. There is no justification for increasing this sum by so much, if at all.

Grant to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve: £300 (unchanged). This has become an annual grant. Rather generous in current circumstances.

New bins: £500. For other wards. Yet IPC refused to reinstate money for a larger waste bin to replace the overflowing one by the public toilets & recycling bins.

Local Action Plan: £1,500 (new). No specific projects. Another disguised contingency fund.

New playground equipment: £2,500. IPC has spent over £52,000 on new playground equipment since 03/04 and budgeted to spend another £9,500. It has never assessed need, does not know how many children there are in each ward and what age. It is poor financial planning to concentrate expenditure in this way.

Total Expenditure: £111,386

Icklesham Parish Council to increase tax by 21%

2010-12-19T07:48:00.002Z

Icklesham Parish Council has voted for an increase of 20.6% in next year's "precept", which is the tax levied by the parish council and included in the Council Tax bill collected by Rother. Only Winchelsea councillors voted against.
The tax hike means that the last two terms of Icklesham Parish Council will have seen the tax on residents quadruple from £19,000 to almost £95,000. And this sum excludes a borrowing by the council of £40,000. It comes despite a call from government for parishes not to raise taxes this year in view of the continuing deterioration in the financial circumstances of an increasing number of tax-payers.
The tax hike comes despite the fact that Icklesham Parish Council has never managed to spend what it has taken from residents. The current council has managed to spend an average of just 71% of its budgeted expenditures and a mere 65% of its annual income. To put this another way, the parish council tax has been at least one-third higher than it needed to be. When this one pointed out to the council, one councillor objected to our use of percentages and demanded that we talk "cash". Very well! From the last financial year, Icklesham Parish Council carried over £42,000 of unspent funds. The year before, they brought forward over £55,000. The year before that, almost £40,000.
And these numbers disguise the true situation because of the switching of sums during the year from projects included in the original budgets to new projects not envisaged when the budgets were drafted (in other words, residents are often told they are being taxed for one thing, but the money is then spent on another).
We were assured that, this year, there would be no underspend. We were told the same thing last year. And Icklesham Parish Council's forecasting has never been good. The carry-overs from the three last financial years of £42,000+, £55,000+ and £40,000 compare with forecasts of £21,000, £36,000 and £15,000, respectively. We can be sure that every effort will now be made to spend as much money as possible this year in order to avoid another underspend, but the pressure to do this is a cause for concern. Among other weaknesses, Icklesham Parish Council has a predilection for spending money on itself. We have just agreed to spend £125 on a memorial plaque for a deceased former councillor, having previously spend tax-payers' money on flowers and a gift. We have also bought flowers for councillors who are unwell, presents for retiring councillors and clerk, and even lunch for a guide and his wife who took a group of councillors on a private tour. Yet, we have been advised that best practice for such personal gestures is for councillors to dip into their own pockets (which would also show genuine sentiment).
One argument in favour of next year's tax hike was that the sums involved were small when considered in terms of the bill for each household. The precept averages about £65 a year. In isolation, many people may consider such a sum to be small. But every penny of money taken from taxpayers should be necessary and should never sit idle in the bank accounts of councils. Such sums must also be considered in the context of other tax bills facing residents, the increasing cost of living and the shrinking real value of wages and pensions. For many, £65 may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Other arguments to justify the tax hike included the extra cost of elections next year. In fact, this adds just £6,000 to the bill. The real drivers of the tax hike are unnecessary changes such as the increase in the contingency fund to £10,000. This decision ignores the hard evidence: pattern of past expenditures show that overspending on some projects has been small and swamped by underspending on other projects. A more realistic figure for contingency fund would be about £4,000.
Then, we were told that the Sussex Association of Local Councils has been urging parishes to increase their budgets to make up for the cuts in the budgets of District and County Councils. Unfortunately, none of the planned expenditures by Icklesham Parish Council address any of the areas of reduced expenditure by other councils.
Finally, we were urged to consider the benefits of parish council spending to the lives of residents. However, despite the increase in tax, most wards will see no new projects. All new proposals for Winchelsea were rejected. We are left with projects that should have been completed in previous years.
The situation at Icklesham Parish Council is unlikely to be improved by the sudden resignation of our new clerk after just six months in post. The clerk's departure seems a real pity. In just six months, she managed to clear a huge amount of the backlog of projects and to sort out internal systems. However, at the last council meeting, the chairman refused to allow discussion of the clerk's reasons for resignation, even though the meeting was in confidential session. We have real concerns that the council, which is the clerk's employer and liable for mistakes under employment law, is not being told why the clerk's departure, which followed a meeting with the chairman and vice chairman, was so sudden and unexpected.
Cllrs Chishick, Comotto, Terry

New bench in Winchelsea

2010-04-04T15:08:00.000+01:00

The parish council has received a letter from the Winchelsea Garden Society (signed by a Mrs Cynthia Feast) objecting to the new bench that has been installed by the council by the parish noticeboard in the centre of Winchelsea and demanding that the old bench be reinstated. The Garden Society claim that the old bench was theirs, despite having previously disclaimed all responsibility.
But even if the old bench was theirs, why should sensible and mature people want to replace a new and well-designed all-wood bench with an old and deteriorating metal-and-wood bench that was, to be frank, out of character with the area? As ever in Winchelsea, the object of a public argument is but a cover for personality politics, and some people appear happy to cut off their nose to spite their face.
This is not the first time that the bench has caused controversy. Cllr Sutton of Winchelsea Beach (still smarting from having been reported by Winchelsea councillors for having repeatedly failed to declare conflicts of interest) tried quite recently to block the installation of the bench on the grounds that replacing the old bench was an insult to the memory of the gentleman to whom it was dedicated (notwithstanding that the dedication plaque is being transferred) and even dug up a distant relative to write an incensed letter of objection (despite the new bench having been approved by the immediate family).

Council meeting on 8 March 2010

2010-04-04T14:56:00.000+01:00

The main event was the refusal of the Council to contribute towards a youth project in Winchelsea. The proposal was to get groups of local youngsters (of whom there are over 60) to make short films about their life in and views of Winchelsea, with the assistance of a specialist not-for-profit company and borrowed equipment. There were a number of objectives. First, the project was seen an innovative solution to the particular problems of staging a youth consultation in Winchelsea as part of the Town Plan. There are no locations (as in other wards of the parish) such as youth clubs where youngsters congregate and can be contacted in numbers; the age range of youngsters in Winchelsea is very diverse; and a high percentage of families are weekenders. Children would form groups with friends and film at any time. Film-making was also seen as an activity that would attract youngsters, and allow them to offer candid and unprompted opinions, in a way that traditional consultation techniques such as questionnaires and meetings would not. Second, the project was seen as an activity for the spring and summer for a section of the community that notably lacks their facilities. Third, it was felt that the process of film-making would usefully engage youth and old in Winchelsea.
The grant application sought to make use of an item that has been included in the budget and council tax demand for several years (ranging from £1,000 to £3,000 a year) but has been spent only twice and remains unspent this financial year.
It was clear from the start that councillors from the other wards of Icklesham Parish were predisposed to oppose the application. It appeared that many councillors had not bothered to read the carefully argued project proposal and a couple of those that did had trouble with the numbers. Various spurious arguments were dredged up. The main objection was that the project did not include all four wards. Yet, the same demand was not made when other wards (eg Rye Harbour) applied for similar funding from the Council and councillors did not seek to have the project broadened. They simply voted it down.
Cllr Bronsdon argued that a film-making project had been organised in Rye Harbour some years earlier without council funding and so Winchelsea should not get funding from the council for its film. He ignored the fact that the purpose of the two film-making projects was completely different, but rather curiously commented that the resulting film had been made available in Rye Harbour and France (but nowhere else in the parish or country)!
Cllr Merricks (Icklesham) objected that some children in Winchelsea were from families who were weekenders and argued that council tax should not be spent on such people. The fact that weekend families pay council tax cut no ice.
Clearly, Winchelsea retains its special status in Icklesham Parish as a cash cow. One wonders whether the argument that a council grant must be spent on all wards will be applied to grant applications from any other ward?

Parish Council LAP

2010-02-12T13:38:00.002Z

One logistical problem facing the Parish Council in its wish to circulate the Rother questionnaire in Winchelsea was, who would deliver? Certainly, none of the councillors from other wards would be willing to tramp the mean streets of Winchelsea (or their own wards, for that matter). The problem was solved by Jurat Michael Melvin, who told the Parish Clerk that he has a team of people who regularly deliver things around Winchelsea! In fact, the deliveries were done by various members of the unelected Corporation of Winchelsea, or at least those who are compos mentis and compos sana (still able to walk).

Parish Council meeting, 8 February 2010

2010-02-12T09:51:00.003Z

Public questions

The usual brace of Jurats turned up. Jurat Melvin took umbrage at the resolution by Cllr Comotto asking for the heating in village halls to be turned on before council meetings and for the PR system to be hired for meetings at the New Hall. These requests followed complaints from councillors and members of the public about freezing conditions at a recent meeting in a village hall (the hall was just warming up when the meeting finished) and the perpetual difficulty of hearing what is being said in the New Hall. Quite why such requests should be taken as an insult to village halls is unclear. Helpfully, the village hall in which this month's council meeting was held (Winchelsea Beach) had been pre-heated.

Jurat Spencer attended but did not mention trains!

The Council has agreed to revert to its traditional practice of allowing public questions on any topic within the parish council's remit. The Council has the right to defer an answer to the following meeting and to ask for complex questions to be submitted in writing ahead of the following meeting.

Minutes

Three amendments by Cllr Comotto were agreed but to much grumbling by a couple of councillors, particularly Cllr Stanford. She objected to amendments being proposed at the meeting, despite having proposed five amendments at a recent meeting. She also seems to see amendments as something in which each ward should have its share. Thus, in response to one of Cllr Comotto's amendments, she retorted, "In that case, I what to amend..."

Of course, amendments to the minutes are boring. But the problem is that the minutes of Icklesham Parish Council read like a novellette. "Councillor X said this. Councillor Y disagreed. Councillor Z argued that..." Council minutes should record resolutions, decisions, reports and correspondence. Look at those of Rye Town Council: brief and to the point. And by eschewing a narrative of discussions, they avoid disputes about who said what and eliminate the scope for point-scoring.

Concise minutes would also reduce the burden on the Clerk. That has become an issue, with the Clerk (Derek Rosewell) resigning, because he feels he is not getting through the workload fast enough. Derek has been an efficient and very competent clerk, but has been overburdened with bureaucratic nonsense, including having to write verbose minutes.

Matters Arising

It was noted, but in the lowest possible key, that a raft of letters of protest had been received from Winchelsea residents about the Council's decision in November to refuse to spend the £165 earmarked in the budget for a noticeboard to keep residents of Tanyard Lane in the loop, and the attempt by Cllr Sutton to stop a new bench being installed in Winchelsea. All that councillors and members of the public discovered was that "around 20" letters had been received. What the letters said, and the strength of feeling, was left to the imagination. There really appears to be no point in writing to the Council to register a protest.

Local Action Plans

This was the main event of the evening and it took the form of an ambush. The ambush was set up, in the usual Icklesham Parish Council fashion, by planting a vague item on the agenda, "Local Action Plan Steering Group, Clerk to report". As the LAP Steering Group consists of councillors from Icklesham, Rye Harbour and Winchelsea Beach wards, one might have expected the focus to be a report by the Clerk on the "fast track" LAPs being created in those wards by Rother District Council. In fact, the focus was Winchelsea and the lead was taken, not by the Clerk, but by the Chairman (Jim Horsman of Icklesham ward).

The opening shot in the ambush was an ultimatum by the Chairman to the Winchelsea ward councillors: either the Winchelsea Town Plan Steering Committee hand over all data they have collected, or the parish council would go over their heads and circulate the standard questionnaire provided to the other three wards by Rother to Winchelsea (this is a standard one-size-fits-all questionnaire for a one-off consultation somewhat removed from the original LAP model envisaged by government). The Steering Committee itself had not been invited to the meeting. Instead, the Chairman wanted the Winchelsea councillors to make a decision on behalf of the Steering Committee. However, they felt that the Steering Committee had to take that decision and would have to meet. The Chairman demanded an answer within 24 hours and, when that was ruled out as impracticable, he demand that the Winchelsea Councillors make a decision on the spot. They refused. The Chairman then proposed that the Rother questionnaire be copied to Winchelsea and that residents be given until 22 February to respond. Winchelsea councillors objected to this time scale. By the time the form was copied and distributed, they argued, residents would have a week or less to respond. They also noted that a large section of the community were weekenders, who did not visit Winchelsea frequently in the winter and would therefore not get the questionnaire in time. These objections were brushed aside and, yet again, the three elected ward councillors for Winchelsea found themselves out-voted on a Winchelsea matter by councillors for other wards.

Why the rush? The Chairman told the Council that it was the wish of Rother District Council to see a single LAP for the whole of Icklesham Parish. He claimed that, if the information was not with Rother by 22 February, Winchelsea residents will "lose out" on unspecified funding! When asked why the Winchelsea Steering Committee had not been approached earlier, the Chairman claimed that Rother had been in contact with the Steering Committee since November. He was discomfited, but not deterred, by the information that the first contact from Rother had in fact been on 4 February and that this had been only to ask for a one-page update on the Winchelsea Town Plan.

It has subsequently been discovered that Rother has not asked for a single LAP for all four wards, as the Chairman claimed! So what is going on? Could it be that the councillors from the other wards of Icklesham Parish Council are concerned that a separate LAP for Winchelsea might reinforce the case for a separate parish of Winchelsea? If that is case, these councillors may find that they have just scored an own goal. Their behaviour will only strengthen the arguments for a separate parish by demonstrating the dysfunctional nature of Icklesham Parish Council.

Whatever the arguments for or against a separate parish, the attempted take-over will mean Winchelsea ends up with two competing LAPs, one supported by the "separatists" and the other by the "unionists". The LAP based on the one-size-fits-all questionnaire will hardly stand comparison with the detailed work produced by the local Steering Committee, but the credibility of both will suffer to some extent.

Cricket Field allotment gate

This is to be re-hung to prevent cattle barging it open and getting into the allotment.

Results of 2010/11 budget consultation in Winchelsea

2010-01-13T20:48:00.000Z

The following is a summary of the response to a questionnaire sent out to all residents of Winchelsea asking what they would like to see in the 2010/11 budget. 104 adults responded, by far the largest indication of public opinion in the parish. The results were studiously ignored by the parish council.

1 Unless there are really worthwhile projects, the aim should be to reduce the budget and precept.

YES 81%   NO 11%
2   No new projects should be added to the budget until all previous ones are completed.
YES 64%   NO 21%
3   All new projects should be programmed, so that tax is not levied until it is needed.
YES 89%   NO   0%
4   No project should be included in the budget until the possibility of grants has been properly explored.
YES 87%   NO 9%
5   As recommended by the Council's own Financial Regulations, budget planning should extend three years into the future.
YES 85%   NO 0%
6   In line with best practice, all capital projects should be assessed when completed to check that they have been properly managed, and all recipients of grants should be required to report back on how grants were spent.
YES 96%   NO 0%
7   The Contingency Fund should be cut to £5,000.
YES 70%   NO 6%
8   The Chairman's Allowance (£450) should be abolished.
YES 64%   NO 13%
9   The budgets for Quality Parish Council (£1,500) and youth project (£1,000) should be axed until programmes of implementation are produced.
YES 75%   NO 4%
10 There should be no further expenditures on new playground equipment until need is assessed and a clear strategy produced. There should be a cap on annual spending on playgrounds in order to smooth out future replacement costs.
YES 75%   NO 6%
11 The budgets for Playground Maintenance (£2,500) and Rye Harbour Flagpole (£1,000) should be cut back until programmes of implementation are published.
YES 74%   NO 4%
12 Grants to village halls should only be made in cases of need, where the village hall applies for a particular capital project.
YES 77%   NO 9%
13 The priority for next year's budget should be to bring the condition of land owned or leased by the Council, particularly its allotments, up to a high standard. The allotments need effective external fencing.
YES 66%   NO 4%
14 A water supply to the Pear Tree Marsh allotments. This should be a green solution in the form of a solar-powered pump to extract water from the river.
YES 64%   NO 8%
15 The derelict land next to the allotments at Pear Tree Marsh allotments, which is used for parking by just a select handful of residents, should be converted into a secure car park open to all residents of Tanyard Lane. There should be a modest charge for a parking space in order to recoup the cost.
YES 64%   6%
16 The bus shelter in The Strand is in a disgusting state and not well-designed to deter vandalism. It should be rebuilt in brick and tile, with the front open to view, and well-lit.
YES 77%   No 8%
17 A programme to clean the bus shelters and benches in Winchelsea.
YES 89%   NO 6%
18 The Council pays the annual recalibration fee for the Winchelsea speed gun.
YES 89%   NO 4%
19 A grant towards the archaeological investigation of the new site for a public tennis court being discussed by the Winchelsea Tennis Association and Winchelsea Cricket Club, to be match-funded by a grant from Rother.
YES 75%   NO 4%
20 A new sign for Wesley tree.
YES 68%   NO 6%

Comments included: the Council should never borrow; the Council should renegotiate the rent for Rye Harbour flagpole; there should be no charge for the Pear Tree Marsh car park; the Chairman's Allowance should be a £100 expenses account; the Council should repair the grass verges; Winchelsea needs more footpaths in and out; there needs to be a VAS on Tanyard Lane; there should be visitor parking.

Council meeting on 11 January 2010

2010-01-11T22:52:00.139Z

Public Questions opened with the now traditional contribution by a member of Winchelsea Corporation. There was only one in attendance this month and, as this was Jurat Spencer, the topic was naturally the timetable at Winchelsea station.
The big event of the night was the budget. It had been agreed, at the last meeting, that the budget would be £99,085 and the precept £77,500. But it was not to be. Cllr Bronsdon argued that it had been agreed formally in November to include £1,000 for youth projects and that the decision at the December meeting to delete this (because there is no actual youth project to be financed) had been improper. He wanted the £1,000 re-inserted. Readers will recall that Cllr Bronsdon had repeatedly challenged the Chairman at the last meeting over cuts in the budget. Despite both the Chairman and the Clerk stating that no formal decision had been made in November and despite the lack of a youth project, the rest of the Council (excluding Winchelsea councillors) reversed their December decision and reinstated the £1,000. So, the budget is now £100,084 and the precept £78,500. Of course, the increase in the precept will not worry Cllr Bronsdon personally: being a resident of Rye, he will not pay Council Tax in Ickelsham Parish.
An application was made by Icklesham School for £3,000 for a canopy and play equipment. This has apparently been required by Ofsted! Some councillors felt that such requirements should be financed from the education budget. There was also doubt about whether the Council had the power to make such a grant, given that the school is not a community facility. The school claim that the playground will be open to the community, but this seems doubtful given the restrictions on access imposed by schools these days. In the end, the Council made a grant of £1,000.
A proposal to create another plot at the Pear Tree Marsh allotment (to address the waiting list) was deferred at the insistence of non-Winchelsea councillors. One objection was from Cllr Merricks, who was convinced that there was an oak tree in the middle of the plot! And she also objected that she had not had time to visit the site and that the proposal had simply appeared on the agenda. Quite where she thinks proposals should appear, other than on the agenda, is unclear.Cllr Bronsdon objected to an additional plot on the grounds that there was no water supply at Pear Tree Marsh.
Cllr Merricks was also the author of a curious resolution insisting that nothing should appear on the Works Programme that had not been authorised by the Council. When asked for an example of such unapproved work, she cited work at the Cricket Field allotment. In fact, this had been discussed by the Council in May 2009 (Minute 09/106). In the end, the Council instructed the Clerk to add the date and minute of the meeting against each item in the Work Programme.
But Cllr Merricks is not the only one who has difficulty following Council business and is unwilling to keep her own records. Cllr Stanford, whose lapses of memory have already forced the Council to buy a recording system, proposed that the Clerk keep a book of Council policies for reference. In fact, given that the policies of the Council are adopted in the form of decisions, this record exists already in the form of the Minutes and the Council's Decision Book. However, Cllr Stanford is not prepared to read the Minutes and was unaware that a Decision Book existed. But she and other councillors were unwilling to accept a proposal that the Minutes should be made easier to consult by limiting them to recording only the essentials of a meeting, such as decisions, and that the Decisions Book should be published. Instead, the Clerk has been lumbered with another unnecessary task.
All in all, this meeting was a messy affair. The Chairman once again lost control of the meeting and his failure to enforce Standing Orders allowed incoherent, multilateral arguments to break out, as well as permitting Cllr Stanford to resume her habit of making snide asides and pulling faces whenever Winchelsea councillors spoke. In a classic performance, she moaned and griped about three amendments to the Minutes by Cllr Comotto, asking the gallery why these amendments were not sent to the Clerk in advance of the meeting, while ignoring the Clerk's reply that the amendments had been sent in advance and ignoring the fact that she is happy enough to table amendments at meetings (she tabled five as recently as November). Later on, Cllr Stanford had another pop at the Clerk, while standing in for the Chairman, for failing to have a document to hand.
No one could accuse Cllrs Moore, Sutton and Thompson of any rudeness. They once again contributed absolutely nothing to the meeting. How can they suffer in silence?
Postscript. It was revealed that the Chairman had tapped his allowance for £80 for flowers for the widow of the late former councillor, Michael Alford, and two donations to charities. Once again, councillors have chosen to ignore the advice of SALC, that such donations should come out of the pockets of councillors, rather than be passed onto to tax-payers.

Secret meeting

2009-12-23T10:06:00.005Z

On 17 August 2009, Icklesham Parish Council held its out-of-term summer meeting. A meeting in August meeting was originally introduced expressly for the purpose of signing cheques that could not wait until September and, it was agreed that no other items should be tabled, given that August is a traditional holiday month and not all councillors would be able to attend.
This year, however, an extra item was, at the last minute, added to the agenda, "Matters relating to winchelsea.net website". Moreover, it was decided that the precise nature of these matters and the discussion of them would be confidential.
It was puzzling as to why the issue was regarded as so urgent that it could not wait just four weeks, until the resumption of normal Council business in September. Was it coincidental that Winchelsea ward councillors had earlier indicated that they would not be able to attend?
As it was, all three Winchelsea ward councillors were able to attend. One made a statement outlining the law surrounding the issue under discussion. It was clear that other councillors were totally unaware of the relevant law, despite being asked to make a decision with potentially dire financial consequences for the Council. The statement caused some consternation in the Council and subsequently one councillor complained that Winchelsea councillors "had been prepared". It transpired that members of the Council had sought external advice on the issue. However, neither the request for advice, nor the advice itself, were in writing. Indeed, the advisors concerned reportedly did not wish to give their advice in writing. With no text to consult and without the advisors being present, the Council was unable to answer fairly fundamental questions on whether the advice had addressed certain material points of law.
With the Council refusing to pass on the points raised by the Winchelsea councillors to its advisors, the issue has petered out, but serious issues of principle remain to be answered. Was the Council attempting an "ambush" of Winchelsea councillors by bringing, at the eleventh-hour, an item, supposedly of great import but not of any urgency, to the agenda of a meeting which is not intended for substantive business, which some Winchelsea councillors were expected to be able to attend and for which it was hoped Winchelsea councillors would be unprepared? Should advice on matters claimed to be so serious be sought and accepted verbally? Why were the Council's advisors not asked to attend? Should councillors make a decision on such matters when they do not understand the legal issues and financial consequences? Why did Council consider exposing itself to such a serious financial risk, instead of trying first to resolve the matter by a phone call?
Unsurprisingly, the meeting satisified no one. An unfortunate remark by the Chairman after the closing of the meeting sparked a heated exchange (and more) between councillors. Fortunately, no members of the public were in attendance or the Council would have brought itself into utter disrepute.

Parish Council meeting, 14 December 2009

2009-12-17T23:09:00.007Z

This was the second meeting to discuss the budget for 2010/11. The previous meeting, in November, saw an apparently collective determination by councillors from other wards to refuse to cut anything from the draft budget except proposals for Winchelsea (Pear Tree Marsh car park and Strand bus shelter) and attempts to block agreed projects for Winchelsea included in the current budget (Strand noticeboard and new bench).

Public Questions

The December meeting started with the now regular political expedition by members of the Corporation. Jurat Spencer berated councillors for their "demeaning and disruptive" behaviour at the last meeting.
Jurat McKinna complained about the recent petition by Winchelsea residents against the Council's expropriation of the Remembrance Sunday wreath-laying ceremony in Winchelsea. He criticised Winchelsea ward councillors for "politcising" Remembrance, and asked how a petition could be democratic, if it was not shown to people who did not wish to sign it! He also demanded to know how many people had not been shown the petition and how many had refused to sign.
Cllr Comotto pointed out that the wreath-laying ceremony in Winchelsea had been made into a political issue by a resolution tabled by Cllr Bronsdon of Rye Harbour to substitute elected ward councillors by the parish council Chairman (but only in Winchelsea). Jurat M admitted that he was unaware of this fact and had the good grace to apologise.
However, his complaint about the petition started a hare running through the thicket that is Icklesham Parish Council. Jurat M seems to have confused petitions with referenda, where it would indeed be undemocratic not to allow every voter to have their say. To be fair, such confusion is not that surprising for a member of an organisation that last flirted with democracy some five hundred years ago. No one really knew how to unravel such a convoluted misunderstanding of the democratic process. Even councillors who were inclined to support Jurat M as a matter of principle were unable to work out how to do so without looking ridiculous. In the end, as Cllr Drew pointed out, anyone opposed to the object of a petition can always organise their own. But for the information of Jurat M: it is estimated that 6,787,257,692 people were not shown the wreath-laying petition!

Budget

After the starters came the main course. A draft budget of £113,503 was put before the Council. This would have required a Precept (the parish council tax on residents) of £91,160, an increase of 31% over the current financial year.
Some councillors argued that such an increase was perfectably acceptable, given that it was equivalent to a mere £10 extra a head. Winchelsea ward councillors felt that, in current economic circumstances, a reduction would be more appropriate and that, in view of the Council's chronic and substantial underspending of its budget, any increase could not be justified. It was noted that strong opposition to an increase in the Precept had been expressed by Winchelsea residents in response to the budget consultation.
Winchelsea councillors suggested that the Council should conduct a a line by line review of the draft budget and then, if the total was too high, repeat the exercise until the budget was cut to an acceptable figure by rejecting or deferring expenditures which were not priorities.
Other councillors objected on the grounds that everything in the draft budget was a priority. This seemed to the Winchelsea projects which the Council had refused but did include £750 for a sign saying "Rye Harbour" to be put up on the outskirts of Rye Harbour. Such a sign should be erected by the County Council but they have refused. Interestingly, whenever Winchelsea has asked the parish council to do something that another body has failed to do, Rye Harbour councillors are at the forefront of objections that the parish council should not assume the functions of other bodies.
Winchelsea ward councillors expected, once again, to be simply outvoted by councillors from other wards, but the desire to automatically oppose anything suggested by Winchelsea councillors had to compete with the complete apathy of several councillors (some never spoke for the whole meeting) and the commonsense shown by Cllr Lyward of Winchelsea Beach, who felt that the Council, like other organisations in the current climate, should trim its sails.
£500 for new bins was axed, after the discovery that no one had asked for bins. £1,450 was cut from playground equipment, having been wrongly included in the first place. Amazingly, £150 was shaved from the Chairman's Allowance. £650 was cut from training, £2,155 from grants to churches for grass-cutting, £500 from the Council's own grass-cutting bill, £1,000 from the maintenance fund for repairing Smeaton's Lane in Winchelsea Beach (only just repaired at a cost of over £5,000) and £1,000 from the youth projects fund (because there are no actual projects). Winchelsea councillors offered to defer projects worth £3,010. Regretably, however, the Council refused to budget £1,750 for a communal shed requested by the plot-holders of the rejuvenated Cricket Field allotments. In total, some £13,660 was trimmed from the draft budget.
As it was, even these modest cuts were too much for Cllr Bronsdon. The breaking point for Cllr Bronsdon (who, as a resident of Rye, will not pay the Precept he was so keen to increase) appeared to be the cutting of the Chairman's allowance. This item has become a sacred cow for some councillors; a symbol of the Council's authority over tax-payers. The cut was proposed by the Chairman, after it was pointed out that, since this allowance had been drawn down as needed, rather than being taken in one lumpsum upfront, expenditure had never exceeded £144, suggesting that the budgeted sum of £450 was too much. Cllr Bronsdon objected and tried to wind back all the cuts, claiming that, as the Council had formally approved most of the budget items at its previous meeting, these could not therefore be cut or deleted at the current meeting (this presumably excluded the increase from £1,000 to £2,000 which Cllr Bronsdon was seeking for the flagpole at Rye Harbour).
The Chairman disagreed, explaining that the budget discussion was informal and no formal votes had been taken at the previous meeting, a point substantiated by the Assistant Clerk, who taken the minutes. Despite being over-ruled, Cllr Bronsdon (a former Chaiman himself) persisted in objecting and the exchange became increasingly heated. Was this the demeaning and disruptive behaviour feared by Jurat S? Obviously, the mentoring organised for Cllr Bronsdon by the Monitoring Officer has not been entirely successful.
Another little upset was caused when it was noted that the first Chairman to take an allowance (Cllr Merricks of Icklesham ward) had taken the whole amount upfront and refused to account for how it has been spent (although one year, she did claim that she had spent the money on gifts for retiring Councillors and Clerk). That councillor retorted that the Council had agreed that she did not have to account for it. She had therefore broken no rules. But then, no MPs have broken the rules with their allowances!
Surprisingly, the decision to cut the grants to churches for grass-cutting to £1,000 in total from £3,150 this year did not excite any objections. The reason appears to be that the £1,000 will be split equally, whereas the £3,150 was divided in proportion to the cost of grass-cutting for each church (so, Winchelsea got £2,000, Icklesham £500, Rye Harbour £400 and the Beach £250). Cllrs Merricks and Stanford were incensed last year because Winchelsea was getting more than other wards, even though their grass-cutting bill was bigger. Indeed, Cllr Stanford claimed that the resolution put to the Council had been for equal shares and would not accept the word of the Chairman and Clerk. As a result, the Council ended up spending over £900 on a recording machine. This time around, Cllrs Merricks and Stanford seemed happy that the churches in their wards were getting an equal share of a smaller cake than a smaller share of a larger cake.
An interesting digression from the main discussion was provided by Cllr Merricks. She had prepared a list of the expenditures put forward for each ward into the draft budget and calculated each ward's share of the total. These shares had then been compared with the proportion of voters in each ward. The logic of Cllr Merricks' arithmetic was that each ward should get a share of the budget in proportion to its share of the voting population of the parish. Given that Winchelsea councillors had proposed more projects than other ward councillors, the aim seemed to be to cut spending on Winchelsea and support the case for another £3,000 to be spent on Icklesham (specifically, on an outdoor shelter at the school).
Cllr Merricks arithmetic was dubious. She had forgotten to include several expenditures proposed for wards other than Winchelsea, had removed from the Icklesham village total the cost of the loan taken out by the Council last year to make a grant to Icklesham Memorial Trust (about £3,200 a year), and had included in the Winchelsea total a ward councillor's training request. She had also mistakenly assumed that the Precept is paid only by voters (in fact, all residents pay) and had ignored the fact that Winchelsea pays a larger Precept per head than other wards because assessments are based on property value and are not per capita. Significantly, Cllr Merricks did not do the calculations for the current financial year, when Icklesham ward received a grant for its village hall of £40,000 from the Council plus £6,000 for relaying the car park outside the village hall. Taking this into account and calculating the shares of expenditures which could be attributed to specific wards, Icklesham ward took 83% of spending, leaving the Beach with 8%, Winchelsea with 5% and Rye Harbour with 4%.
As it was, Cllr Merricks' arithmetic was largely ignored. But it did help by focusing discussion on £5,000 requested by Winchelsea councillors at the previous meeting for the provision of a water supply and the clearance of Pear Tree Marsh allotment (a project approved two years ago but one of the many still to be completed or even started). This sum had been agreed but it appeared to have been subject to a provisio that, when it came time to spend the money, it might be diverted to other wards. As Cllr Merricks' arithmetic showed the money as a sum for Winchelsea, Winchelsea councillors pressed the Council and secured agreement that the money will be dedicated to Pear Tree Marsh.
More than anything else, the discussion demonstrated that the fundamental difficulty that Icklesham Parish Council has with the budget process. Only a minority of councillors participate actively, if at all, in the discussion. Some resent having to go through the draft budget line by line and a few even believe that it should all be done by the Clerk. Most see the budget, not as a set of planned expenditures, but as set of contingency pots from which money can be drawn when the urge to do something arises later in the year.
In the end, the Council agreed a budget of £99,843 and a precept of £77,500, which represents an increase of almost 12%. More could have been removed from the draft budget, including the rest of the Chairman's allowance and £4,000 for Icklesham Recreation Ground drainage (an unnecessary project which will have consumed £36,000 against an original budget of £15,000). Councillors were assured that the Council will not underspend its budget this year, but even the estimated carry-over from this year is £20,793 (about 30% of the current precept).

Budget consultation

Before the budget debate, Winchelsea councillors attempted to inform the Council of the results of the budget consultation in Winchelsea, where 102 residents had responded by the time of the meeting to a questionnaire distributed to each household. However, there was absolutely no interest in what residents thought and no other councillors mentioned the views of their wards in the rest of the meeting. Public consultation appears to have fallen out of favour with Icklesham Parish Council as quickly as it was taken up.

Save Now

Precept to increase by 12% next year

2009-12-16T21:47:00.003Z

At its meeting on 14 December 2009, Icklesham Parish Council fixed a budget of £99,843 for the financial year starting on 1 April 2010. This means a precept (the tax levied by the Parish Council on residents) of £77,500 compared with £69,414 in this current financial year (the additional £22,343 in the budget will be financed mainly by £20,793 of unspent money likely to be carried over from this year).The budget discussion and the rest of the Council meeting are described in another posting. The budget (with previous year's figures in brackets) is:

Expenditures
administration
23,800 Clerks' costs (23,600)
4,750    other admin expenses (4,750)
2,000    insurance (2,000)
2,000    elections fund (0)
500       training fund (1,000)
1,500    newsletter, website fund (1,500)
300       Chairman's allowance (450)
7,500    contingency fund (7,500)
750       legal contigency fund (750)
current
7,000     grass cutting (7,000)
5,500     rubbish & dog bin collections (5,200)
2,500     street lighting in Winchelsea (2,500)
1,400     playground maintenance fund (900)
1,000     allotments maintenance fund (1,000)
1,000     Smeatons Lane maintenance fund (5,000)
500        tree maintenance fund (4,500)
3,500     fence repair fund (3,500)
4,500     other repairs, cleaning, small works fund (4,421)
capital projects
3,118     cost of loan for Icklesham Memorial Hall grant (3,118)
4,000     Icklesham Recreation Ground drainage maintenance (0)
5,000     new playground equipment in Winchelsea Beach
2,000     new playground equipment in Rye Harbour
2,000     Rye Harbour flagpole maintenance (1,000)
750        new sign for Rye Harbour
175        new bin by Strand bus shelter
5,000     Pear Tree Marsh allotment project
1,000     donations fund (1,000)
4,000     grants to village halls (4,000)
1,000     grants to churchyards (3,150)
1,500     grant to Rye Community Transport (1,500)
300       grant to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve (300)
99,843 total expenditure (108,092)

income
20,793   unspent funds carried over from previous year (36,364)
2           interest (7)
148       rent (148)
1,400    allotment rents (1,400)
77,500   precept (69,414)
99,843 total income (107,333)