IMAGE CREDIT: Christine Racher
We welcome a new parish clerk to the community, a pivotal role in proceedings here—Bay Life, 18 April 2018
The new Pevensey parish clerk is stepping into the role at the most critical in the history of parish councils in this country. Our precious community asset, the library, closes on May 5.
The Localism Act of 2011 is a benchmark, perhaps the most important piece of legislation this country has seen with rural communities since 1894.
There are examples of best practice in parish councils, innovation and what Margaret Martin, who is a friend of Pevensey Bay Library, calls “joined up thinking” all over the country.
Stakeholder partnerships, multi-agency approaches, new ways of working with local authorities and new ways of fundraising within communities are beginning to re-cast the notion of the role of parish councils in this country. A new, amorphous shape is appearing in parish councils across the land.
The Local Government Association said (2012) “every council is an enterprising council in one way or another. Councils have led the way in the public sector, demonstrating initiative and resourcefulness to rise to the social, economic and environmental challenges that our communities are facing.”
To survive, parish councils will have to work in new ways. The question is what will happen in the parish of Pevensey?
The nature of the challenge for any parish clerk is a critical concern. But in some ways, like the radical changes that swept the social reforms of the early nineteenth century, this is perhaps the most exciting time of all to take up the position of a parish clerk.
Bay Life looks to where we are in the parish of Pevensey in these turbulent times of social fragmentation, not just here in this parish, but to a bigger picture that is happening across the country.
. . .
Cometh the hour on the St. Wilfrid’s church hall clock
The Society of Local Council clerks explains that the title “Clerk” developed from the Latin clericus. “During the Middle Ages, when scholarship and writing were limited to the clergy, “clerk” came to mean a scholar, especially one who could read, write, and thus serve as secretary, accountant and recorder”.
“In 1835 the Municipal Corporations Act required every borough council to appoint a salaried Town Clerk. The position of Clerk was further consolidated by the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894 which granted , respectively, County Councils and then Urban and Rural Districts and the newly created civil parish councils the specific power to appoint a “Clerk of the Council”.
“The importance of the Clerk’s position was underlined by Lord Justice Caldecote ruling in Hurle-Hobbs ex parte Riley and another (1944) observed: “The office of town clerk is an important part of the machinery of local government. He may be said to stand between the local Council and the ratepayers. He is there to assist by his advice and action the conduct of public affairs in the borough”
The Society further explains,”Since the 1970’s the role and functions of parish, community and town councils have increased immeasurably”.
If we wind the clock forward to 2018 and St. Wilfrid’s church hall, we come to an extraordinary moment in the history of parish councils, perhaps the most extraordinary since the Local Government At of 1894.
The Localism Act of 2011 has changed everything. Bay Life has been making this point repeatedly for 7 years.
To paraphrase the 6 part 241 page document we would sum up the Act with one sentence, “do what you want now, you have got a lot more powers, as long as there is democratic decision making and accountability and you are serving your community, but there is no money now“.
Fifteen years ago we have been reliably informed that parish councillors could be witnessed asleep at meetings.
The days when middle aged men in straw hats and Marks and Spencers stretch terylene trousers could sit under the old oak tree of parish affairs leisurely checking the cricket scores, have gone.
Today the parish council is fundamentally important to the life and regeneration of Pevensey and Pevensey Bay.
As services are devolved to the local level from libraries to social services, to aspects of education, we are moving into a brave new world of local government.
We are witnessing the most radical change in local government since 1894 and what is happening at the local level will set the framework for how rural communities will survive and flourish for the next generation.
Parish councils to survive and support the communities they serve will have to form key stakeholder partnerships, not just within the communities they serve, but with local authorities and outside agencies.
Nobody knows what will happen, but the radical changes are happening and what has now dawned on parish councils all over the country is that they will have to operate in new ways if they are to survive
As county councils divest themselves of the requirement to provide some essential services, parish councils have had to step into the breach and establish new ways to work with key stakeholder partnerships.
We are perhaps only five years away for seeing parish councils taking a central role within the life of parishes well beyond their remit now.
Pevensey Parish Council may well become a multi-purpose organisation.
What is most important is that the principle of democratic partnership, between parish councillor and the people is maintained as a sacrosanct principle. This principle extends well back before the Local Government Act of 1894.
This process of ultimate devolution, post Localism Act 2011, has already started in Pevensey Bay with the loss of our precious library.
East Sussex County Council has just placed the grass cutting box on the doorstep of the parish council without telling them and running away, in game of knock down ginger.
There is a working possibility that aspects of education, and social service will also devolve to parish level, this process is also already happening.
Bay Life understands that a hand over is taking place with outgoing, clerk to Council, Malcolm Lawson.
He is retiring, as he put things “hanging up his minute taking boots’, handing over step by careful step to the new clerk.
Malcolm Lawson is widely praised. He has done a sound job with his many years service.
His social media feed has been described by Bay Life as “a profile that keeps the community informed about important parish wide matters. The notes offered are useful authoritative and well written”.
Anyone who has witnessed his note taking skills and body of knowledge about everything from the ownership of a particular twitten in the parish to whether or not an extraordinary parish meeting can take place in a church, has been been privileged to see his work and experience.
The new clerk, we understand, has already been working with parish council committees
She is someone we understand with experience of work within the ambulance service in Eastbourne at a controller level. This kind of work clearly involves critical organisational and people skills.
She is arriving in the parish at a critical time.
This is perhaps the most challenging time for any parish clerk.
Pevensey as a parish has a multiplicity of concerns, ambitions and challenges.
As well as being such a challenge to any new parish clerk, this is also perhaps the most exciting time of all for a parish clerk to take up such a challenge.
What Lord Justice Caldecote said in 1944 still resonates “”The office of town clerk is an important part of the machinery of local government. He may be said to stand between the local Council and the ratepayers. He is there to assist by his advice and action the conduct of public affairs in the borough”.
If we approach what he said through the prism of the Localism Act of 2011, we get the office of parish clerk in a geometric configuration that is complex and pivotal to any parish and the future of any rural community.
We can also update Lord Justice Caldecote and his description of the role of parish clerk in 1944 in another way as well.
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman.
A big welcome to our new parish clerk. No doubt she will be introducing herself to us all at some point in her own way.
Simon Montgomery
Editor, Bay Life
