Archived Page
This page is no longer maintained.
For up-to-date information please see the
new website
Town and Parish Councils: Democracy at the Grass Roots
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act This Act would appear to be an honest attempt to rationalise community governance and to provide a basis for devolution and empowerment. It has been welcomed by the Local Government Association and the National Association of Local Councils with whom government has conducted consultations. The latter see the Act as an opportunity to 'provide a number of new powers to town and parish councils'. The Chairman of the LGA has stated 'The best way to reinvigorate democracy is to start with local councils. --- Councillors know their local areas and the people who live there. ----Nor should any more quangos further undermine local democracy'. A more specific statement within the Act on the role of local councils and the structure within which they should operate would have been advantageous. However, the principles regarding devolution to parish and town councils as accountable bodies is clear as are the sentiments expressed by the Chairman of the LGA. In the event, Buckinghamshire County Council appears to have chosen to ignore both. A 'New Deal' In June 2007, the County Council circulated a draft paper, entitled A New Deal for Buckinghamshire, for consultation. The paper appeared to offer no meaningful change in the operational role of local councils despite the statement 'In their role as democratically accountable bodies, local councils offer a means of shaping the decisions that affect their communities. They also offer a means of decentralising the provision of certain services and of revitalising local communities'. No provision was made for a mechanism facilitating a structured dialogue between a parish and a superior local authority.Taplow Parish Council responded calling for the proper recognition of local councils as the accountable first tier of local government and the sole local statutory body representing the views of their parishioners.It would appear that the County has abandoned the 'New Deal'. A Dysfunctional Proposal In February 2008, the County produced a document called Establishing Local Area Forums in Buckinghamshire: A framework for consultation, which it appears to be pursuing with inordinate haste and without effective prior consultation with the District or Parish Councils or the GC2C groups. The proposals therein are without logic and fly in the face of efficient public administration, good governance and democratic representation at the grass roots. The proposals are a second stage to the GC2C 'concept'. GC2C, a quango-like body, was imposed on the parishes without consultation and is a body with some members not accountable to the respective parishes. It has no statutory status. The Beeches Group originally comprised Burnham, Dorney and Taplow but was expanded, again without consultation, to include Stoke Poges and Farnham Common. It is chaired by a county councillor and has a membership including county and district councillors for the area and two parish councillors for each parish. It is joined by county officers from time to time. All appear to have voting rights. These arbitrary spaces do not conform to any statutory area relevant to public administration and have no meaningful geographical function; they do not represent 'a community' in any accepted sense of the term. An examination of the Beeches Group suggests that it is irrelevant as a body representing the aspirations and priorities of parish communities. It has failed to perform as an effective conduit to upper-tier local authorities or successfully to progress any of the priority Taplow projects over two years of discussion. A Four-tier Structure Simply put, the new four-tier structure proposed by the County appears to comprise the Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAG) as the first tier, followed by the Local Area Forum, the Area Forum and the County as the fourth tier. NAGs were set up under a government initiative and are controlled by the police. Their remit is to 'improve community safety, reassurance and reduce crime and disorder'. Anyone can become a member. Our local group covers Taplow, Dorney and part of Burnham, representing yet another geographical area without administrative significance. Within this Group there appears to be a lack of understanding of the role of parish councillors as knowledgeable and accountable members of their community. This non-accountable body would appear to be wholly inappropriate as part of a decision-making hierarchy processing communities’ aspirations and priorities. A Local Area Forum (LAF) will replace the South Bucks Joint Local Committee to which the District has raised strong objection on the grounds that it 'removes a key way for district, parish and county councillors to meet and discuss matters of concern'. Membership of the LAFs, based on the GC2C areas, of which there are 19, consists of all county and district councillors in the local area. Police, fire, rescue, health and parish and town councils, in that order, are listed as 'Other members'. The LAF comes between local councils and District and County and reassigns responsibilities of these bodies contrary to statutory guidance by government. There also appears to be provision for an Area Forum based on district council areas. Membership is not stated. The consultation framework states that this project 'requires a great deal of careful planning, sensitive discussion and attention to detail over many months'. Indeed this must be true and should have preceded the premature preparation of a document that is insufficiently specific for meaningful consultation. The diagram accompanying the framework indicates parish and town plans being targeted at the Local Community Plan, prepared by a Local Strategic Partnership, to which they should make a contribution. The Local Strategic Partnership is another quango-type body. No provision appears to be made for progressing the main government-stated objective of a local council plan, which is to provide for action areas in relation to the parish communities’ priorities within the policies of a Local Area Framework. Government guidance also identified a parish or town plan as a vehicle for dialogue with upper-tier authorities in order to reach consensus, which is not reflected in County’s proposals. Presumably the intention is for parish plan issues to be dealt with by the Local Area Forum. But this is inappropriate and not democratic and would be contrary to statutory guidance. The LAF has a membership with unelected members and members who are not responsible to the particular parish community; it has no statutory role. The only administratively correct and democratic way to deal with a communities’ aspirations as expressed in a plan or other document is by face-to-face negotiation with the statutory body responsible for the topic: that is, a department of District or County. A Complex Bureaucracy It is difficult to relate the proposed bureaucratic structure to the County Council’s avowed intention to become close to parish and town councils. It is equally difficult to see how the proposals can provide an effective and proactive role for these local councils. The proposals fly in the face of four golden rules for institution building, which are:- Improve what exists rather than inventing something new
- Stick rigidly to existing political cum administrative boundaries
- Do not mix accountable and non-accountable members on a decision-making body
- Differentiate locationally between a forum for the exchange of views and a body with executive functions.