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23 May 2021
In my blog below of 18 May, I reproduced the e-mail of Debra Main, then a councillor on Hughenden Parish Council (HPC). She was saddened by her experience of being a councillor and the behaviour and culture of the organisation. Amongst other things, she felt weighed down by “excuses, defence, protection, obstacle, issue, challenge and an unwillingness to share documentation.”
As Debra represented Widmer End, I asked for her email to be discussed at a meeting on 14 April of Widmer End Residents’ Association, of which I am a committee member. It concerned me that a councillor representing Widmer End could feel so disheartened by her experience that she had decided not to stand again - particularly as I would be shortly representing Widmer End on the very same Council myself.
To my surprise, one of the other parish councillors representing Widmer End, Marianne Tyler, read out what she said was a statement issued by HPC. The statement began “It is deeply regrettable …” and then carried on to criticise Debra Main*. The draft minutes of the meeting later reproduced this statement saying it was issued by HPC.
I was surprised because I had been at the last meeting of the Council and I couldn’t remember any statement about Debra being mentioned let alone agreed. Perhaps, I thought, the statement had been agreed by correspondence. In that case Debra would have been included in the circulation of the draft and had had a chance to comment.
So, I asked Marianne if Debra Main had seen a copy of this HPC statement. (In any case it seemed a matter of courtesy to let Debra know before a critical statement was read out in public.)
I got no answer.
I checked with Debra the next day and she said she had not seen the statement.
Curiouser and curiouser.
So, I wrote to the Clerk of the parish council. I explained the situation and asked if she could let me know when and how HPC had approved the statement.
I got no answer.
Then in early May, the redrafted WERA minutes came out and this time they said that Marianne had read out a statement not issued by HPC but “drafted by the Hughenden parish clerk”.
At this point I became seriously concerned. A parish council can agree and issue a statement; it is a statutory body and entitled to do so. However, it is quite another matter for the Clerk of a parish council to draft a statement critical of a councillor and give it to another councillor to read out in a public meeting – and keep the councillor being criticised in the dark.
So I wrote to the Clerk again and asked for an explanation, copying to Debra and all HPC councillors. Debra asked to be copied into any response and the Clerk confirmed that she would.
The Clerk responded to say she had drafted the statement for Marianne to use at the WERA meeting and confirmed she had not informed Debra. She said she had the power and the responsibility to do this “under emergency powers and delegated authority coupled with her job description”.
The Clerk did not copy this response to Debra. I did and Debra responded to suggest that a “public apology and retraction for the deeply unpleasant and underhanded and unauthorised statement the Clerk issued to WERA would be appropriate”.
I decided to pursue the matter with the Clerk because we had landed up with a statement critical of a serving councillor put out in the public domain, attributed to the Clerk, without the knowledge of that councillor and without the approval of the Council.
I pointed out to the Clerk that such a situation put her and the Council in a vulnerable position if that councillor decided to take action. It also meant that all councillors were at risk of critical statements about them, drafted by the Clerk, going into the public domain. And it damaged the Council's reputation when we needed to recruit new councillors.
I also pointed out that the statement was not required under emergency powers. The Clerk had not provided a copy of the delegated powers she cited. And as far as I could see nowhere in her job description did it say that the Clerk's responsibilities extended to providing opinions about serving councillors in briefing notes, far less adverse opinions.
I therefore believed the Clerk had gone beyond her job description. I also thought there has been a lack of simple courtesy in the Clerk providing adverse briefing about a councillor without giving them an opportunity to see the briefing and comment.
I suggested the Clerk might like to think about an apology and retraction as Debra had requested. Whatever happened, I thought this practice should stop.
I have had no response from the Clerk or any other councillor. Debra has had no apology. WERA agreed to delete both Debra’s statement and the Clerk’s response from the WERA minutes.
You now need to return to my first paragraph and read again why Debra decided not to stand again as a parish councillor. This seems to be exactly the behaviour which contributed to that decision.
By this time, I had been a councillor for 6 days. Perhaps my concerns about being a councillor were well founded.
*PS I am not going to reproduce the statement here as it was unauthorised.
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