October 2020 Minutes of Public Interest Meeting (5th)
Minutes of the Public Interest Meeting - Failure to submit an Annual Governance & Accountability Return (AGAR) for the year ending 31 March 2019 - held on Monday 5 October 2020, via Zoom
Approved Virtually 09 November 2020
Parish Councillors Present:
Cllrs Rev J Harper, M Armstrong, H Collins District Cllrs Present: District Cllr Liz Clews, District Cllr Mandy Snee, District Cllr Lesley Rollings
In attendance: Members of Public - 3
Meeting was opened by Chair Cllr Harper at 18.15
Cllr Harper updated to give context of this evenings Public Interest Meeting that every year every council should submit AGAR to ensure fully compliant with its financial duties.
In the financial years of 2018 and 2019 this council has failed to submit and as a result the council was ordered to hold a Public Interest Meeting to explain the reasons for its failure to submit. No such meetings were called in the years of 2018 and 2019 and until the recent departure of the former clerk this current council was unaware of the situation until August 2020 when the interim clerk and chair started trying to compile 2019/2020 accounts for audit.
This evening the council will attempt to answer any questions that the public may have.
The council have now recreated accounts for the years of 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020, and internal auditor has been instructed and will be undertaking a through examination of the council's management and conduct since April 2017. A great deal of work and time has be invested into ensuring that the council can move froward and resolve these failings.
Item 1 – Public Questions to the Council
Resident 1 – Why has suddenly come to light?
Cllr Harper – Unfortunately at previous meetings the true extent of the mis-management was not fully clear to all councillors, financial matters appeared to be approved and resolved with little discussion. It is only since we have looked deeper that the failings have come to light. The Monitoring Officer at WLDC was informed by external auditors in 2018 and 2019 but at no point did the Monitoring Officer address the Parish Councillors about this. The clerk also receives all correspondence therefore notifications of failings it is to be assumed were not brought to the attention of the council.
Cllr Colliins added – she was very shocked and upset about the situation, as a relatively new Councillor she is aware that there are a lot of processes that need to learnt and training was never offered from the previous Chair, Vice Chair or Clerk.
2010/003 District Cllr M Snee – Any clerk should have been line managed, but this didn’t happen, as an employee of the council the clerk is expected to have an annual appraisal.
Resident 2 – Stated there are fundamental irregularities with other aspects of the previous council.
Item 2 – Parish Council's response and action plan to resolve the matters raised
Training Courses will be offered for all new and existing councillors. Line management and annual appraisals for the clerk will be implemented and a personnel committee will be formed. New policies and procedures will be implemented and/or updated and revised where appropriate. Advert for the permanent clerk will stipulate that the applicants should be qualified to ILCA or CILCA or show a willingness to undertake this training upon appointment. As you will have seen from last month’s meeting and this month’s meeting, all future parish matters will be openly discussed / recorded and published, with the exception of employment matters, as this is illegal to do so under the Employment Act. In May there will hopefully be new councillors elected and we encourage any residents that wish to join to actively apply.
Cllr Harper duly closed the meeting at 18:38