The Rise of Undocumented Working Groups

Posted on 23rd November, 2022

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BPC has formed three new Working Groups, with the Chair announcing that that there will be no Terms of Reference, nor potentially any minutes or notes of these meetings.

 

It seems that the only way interested residents or councillors can find out who has been involved in discussions, and any subsequent full council recommendations, will be to attend the working group (if invited) and/or attend full council meetings (as they too do not publish any associated notes, reports or papers despite best practice)? Listen to an audio recording of the working group agenda discussion.

 

How is this an open and transparent approach to public decision making and expenditure?

 

The three new working groups are Finance, Communications and Planning (Oct Min 356.7.10). However, it isn't minuted that:

  • the Finance Working Group (preferred by councillors to be a Budget WG?) to be led by Cllr Davies (assisted by Cllrs Clarke & Sheppard);
  • Communications WG to be led by Cllr Getty (assisted by Cllr Garrett) and
  • Planning WG to be led by Cllr Clarke (assisted by Cllrs Boyce & Williams).

It is interesting to note that BPC has already has a Planning WG with unpaublished TOR and during the recent AGAR process BPC stated that it also has a Budget Working Group, but it chose not release any associated information as to when it may have met or what it may have discussed. Also, up until May 2020, following the appointment of a new clerk, BPC had in operation a Finance & Personnel Committee scheduled to meet quarterly in public, and a Planning Committee that used to meet publicly each month. All committee meetings used to be documented and had published TOR. No minuted explanation has been given as to why these committees stopped, although reference has been made in relation to not adding to the clerk’s workload (yet previously the clerk managed to attend and document over 20 additional meetings a year as seen in 2014!)

 

These three new Working Groups follow this year’s unminuted working groups:

  • Playground Training Equipment Grant Working Group
  • Contactus WG
  • Asset Register WG
  • Neighbourhood Plan WG
    • led by Cllrs Boyce, Garrett & Williams - May 22 Min 353.7.d? Total amount spent currently undeclared (Two grants totalling £6K + BPC budget/reserves £3K allocated?)
  • Planning WG
  • Toilets & Coronation Hall Environs
    • led by Cllrs Davies, Clark & Sheppard together with the Clerk - Jan 22 Min 348.4.13 Dec 21 Min 347.7.6 & 9 "to set up a working party to investigate the current state of the toilets with a view of re-furbishing in 2022" Jan 22 Min and May 22 Min 353.10.8 It seems that No Reserve was set aside. There is a maintenance budget of £4K with £2.6K currently spent (Q2). See current quote blog.
  • Jubilee WG
    • led by Cllr Williams - Festivities finished in June this year. Assumed to have spent in the order of £2.3K. No information has been given as to any income raised or how it was spent (Q2). Project still open as tree planting by Bleadon in Bloom yet to conclude.
  • Bleadon-in-Bloom
    • Not a BPC run project. On 18 January 2021 BPC wrote to BOB, "The Bleadon in Bloom group does receive a grant from the council but other than that it is not run by the council. A representative from the council keeps us up to date with the Bleadon in Bloom group but it is independent of the council."
  • BPC Newsletter
    • Not a BPC run proejct. BOB asked BPC to add an article to 'their' newsletter, and on 14 May 2021 BPC replied that the newsletter editor, "... has [full] editorial responsibility for the Bleadon Village News it will be entirely up to her whether or not she includes your [or indeed any persons] suggestion" On 17 May 2021, the newsletter Editor wrote, "Firstly, I must state that the magazine is entirely my own ..." NB This year's Bleadon taxes/precept for the newsletter is £1,6K to the Editor and approx £3.4K for printing (£5K) (Q2).Last year expenditure was £1.6K and £2.4K respectively (£4K) (Q4)

BPC has still not released the draft April Annual Parish Meeting minutes, despite this being a resident and NOT a parish council meeting (May 22 Min 353.13.12) Nor it seems have any related resident or councillor questions or proposed suggestions been put to council for consideration, over six months later.

 

As long-term readers will be aware, over the last decade or so, BOB has had several productive meetings with councillors regarding transparency and public documentation, but for some reason when councillors take recommendations to full council they get over-ridden. For example, September last year Min 345.7.7, councillors’ recommendations were ‘struck’ from the agenda with no further discussion, nor documented reasoning, despite BOB asking for an explanation. The minutes also imply that there was a Personnel Committee meeting, which is incorrect.

  • Minute (a) – No documented explanation is given as to why the Finance & Personnel, Planning and Open Spaces committees were stopped after the clerk arrived, nor why they couldn’t be restarted.
  • Minute (b) – Previous clerks managed to get minutes out to the public within a week to 10 days. They are currently posted a week before the next council meeting, which can be three weeks later to over 18 months later (e.g. May 21 Personnel Committee, desptie being already accepted and acted upon by full council Min 343.7.1).
  • Minute (c) - The previous clerk issued non-confidential agenda packs to the public, there is no explanation as to why this practice was stopped, despite best practice recommendations.
  • Minute (d) - is incorrect as BPC do not publish the Reserve values in their monthly minutes

UPDATE 16JAN23 - BPC reject both the November and December 2023 draft minutes (listen to the 5mins discussion)

 

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