Standards and General Purposes Committee - Thursday 30 July 2026, 2:00pm

Standards and General Purposes Committee
Thursday, 30th July 2026 at 2:00pm

Speaking:

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Cllr Clive Harriss

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

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Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Clive Harriss
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Clive Harriss

2 Apologies

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4 Declarations of Interest

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5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

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3 Minutes

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Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Clive Harriss
Mel Woof BMKALC

5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

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Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Phil Gomm
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Phil Gomm
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Phil Gomm
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Martin Tett
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Martin Tett
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Karen Dickson
Cllr David Carroll
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr David Carroll
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Frank Mahon
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Frank Mahon
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Frank Mahon
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Maru Mormina
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Maru Mormina
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr John Chilver
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Phil Gomm
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Phil Gomm
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Maru Mormina
Mel Woof BMKALC
Cllr Clive Harriss

6 Community Governance Requests - Parish Councils

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Mr Tom Fowler
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Martin Tett
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Martin Tett
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Clive Harriss
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Cllr John Chilver
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Wendy Matthews
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Wendy Matthews
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Cllr Martin Tett
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Karen Dickson
Cllr Clive Harriss
Mr Tom Fowler

7 Code of Conduct Review Q1 - 2026/27

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Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Maru Mormina
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Karen Dickson
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Karen Dickson
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Kelly Thornton
Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Clive Harriss

8 Work Programme 26/27

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Standards&GP work programme 26-27

Mr Tom Fowler
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Martin Tett
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr John Chilver
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr John Chilver
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager
Cllr Clive Harriss
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:00:00

To the standards and general purposes committee today, I'm Councillor Clive Harris, who's

the chairman.

And this is my first meeting, so I want to try and move things along as quickly as possible.

For the benefit of anyone from the public who I don't see, this meeting is going to

be webcast, and as a date of the data protection act, the council has a right to release any

data from this meeting that's used.

So we move straight on to the agenda.

Do we have any apologies?

Just the appointment of the Vice Chairman, first Chairman.

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

Okay.

So if I can just appoint the Vice Chairman, Wendy Matthews.

Welcome, Councillor.

I wish all elections were like that.

So we'll move straight on to the agenda.

So apologies now, I believe.

Yes.

So since publication of the agenda, Councillor Chodai has been replaced on the committee

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:01:00

by Councillor Nidi Mehta, who has given her apologies for this meeting.

Okay.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:06

And Karen Dixon?

She needs to speak in the strategic sites meeting, so she might be a little bit late.

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:01:13

Thank you very much.

All right.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:15

Any declarations of interest, please?

No.

2 Apologies

4 Declarations of Interest

In that case I will turn it over to Linda Wolf, the Chief Executive Officer of Buckinghamshire

and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils, who is going to give us a presentation.

5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

Sorry, Chairman, the minutes as well.

Oh, the minutes, sorry.

Yes, has anyone got any comments to make on the minutes?

3 Minutes

Please, go ahead.

Councillor Sherrilyn Bateman.

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:01:50

I was at the last meeting and I'm disappointed to find that the minutes do not truly reflect

the concerns raised by more than one BC Councillor on this committee.

That proportionally the BC has a greater standards issue when you look at the number of complaints

raised to the number of Councillors on parish councils and that's not reflected.

If we cannot reflect this in the standards committee minutes where these are a summary

of the previous meeting, I feel that we are failing residents and the purpose of the transparency

of this committee. Thank you. Can you be a little bit more specific with

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:02:25

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:02:28

how it is not being represented, please? Yes, I can. So the numbers of complaints,

it was balanced that there were more complaints about parish Councillors. But if you look

at the numbers compared to councillors in proportion, it doesn't work that way around. There is

more in proportion about BUKS councillors so the standards are equally poor on both

sides which I don't feel are reflected in the minutes.

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:02:54

That's fine. Okay. Noted. Thank you.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:02:56

Any other comments regarding the minutes? In that case I'll pass over now to Wendy.

Sorry.

Well, they're leaving.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:03:13

I am officially Melinda Wolf.

Nobody calls me Melinda anymore.

I'm more commonly referred to as Mel.

And I am the chairman, chairperson, if we're going to be proper these days, of the Bucks

5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils, which means it is my privilege and pleasure

to lobby on their behalf and to represent them with two principal authorities.

I'm going to take you through today, let's see if the magic button still works.

It does. I'm going to just, not take too much of your time, but just explain how we governed and what it is that we do.

So we are entirely a membership organisation and I'm really, really pleased to be able to say for the first time in its history since 1947,

We have 100 % membership of all the councils in Buckinghamshire and in Milton Keynes, which is phenomenal.

Some engage more than others, to be fair.

We do provide associate membership free of charge to our tiniest parish meetings,

who may in all fairness only call us once a year, usually when they've forgotten to do their financial returns,

and they're getting little reminder letters from the external auditor.

We try and act as a collective voice, often difficult because every parish council has

its own unique point of view on an issue, so we try and find common pathways in order

to get to speak to their local authorities.

You will recall that in the days of the former district and borough councils, there were

a number of smaller associations of local councils and each one would go directly to

their district or borough council according to the interest that were going on in their

area. Since that has fallen away and our executive board hasn't yet changed shape to accommodate

the new unitary, we tend to speak directly, all of us, through Bucks and Milton Keynes

Association. And we use the clerks' forums and our parish liaison meetings and our planning

forums in order to represent the whole membership, which means you only have to have one meeting

on each of those topics rather than numerous meetings,

each with their local ward councillors.

We try very hard to support councils

to operate effectively, lawfully, and transparently.

Each day of the week brings a challenge

in each one of those categories.

We try and promote high standards of governance,

of ethical conduct, and of community leadership,

and we provide all the practical advice and training

that's required to put that in place.

So let's talk about the governance,

which is always a key issue.

Day -to -day advice regularly,

I would say I get 50 to 60 emails a day.

Many of those will cover aspects of governance.

Mel, how do we do this?

Can you find me the power to do that?

This has happened, what do we do next?

The typical kinds of questions.

It can be everything from support on standing orders,

just how are we conducting meetings, are we doing so in a lawful manner.

You'll be surprised to hear that actually it's not a lawful requirement for a council to have a set of standing orders.

And up until three years ago we did have a parish council in Box who refused to have standing orders

until I advised that it was going to cost them exactly how much in order to have copies of all of the different statutes

at each of their meetings so they could look up the rules.

as of course the standing orders are a really useful distillation of what's pertinent on

the ground.

Member conduct, one of the things that we're going to be talking very much about here today,

and those ethical standards that should be applied to the Code of Conduct, back to those

Nolan principles.

Advice relating to transparency, they are subject to the rules and regulations of the

Information Commissioner's Office with regard to data management and data privacy, so making

sure that they're aware of that and then reviewing it and reminding them of it and helping them

when they then receive Freedom of Information and subject access requests.

And in order to do that, obviously, and clearly, I don't know everything, so we bring on member

service partners, specialist partners, people like the Wellers Law Group, people like WorkNest

for HR issues, various people on financing.

And finally, support for the clerks and the councils just in navigating complex challenges.

It is sometimes sitting them down and saying, right, let's just go through this and regain

our sense of perspective.

Because as you all know, when you're in the fray, it's very easy to just hear certain

voices and not all of the voices that are trying hard to be heard.

So we start with some basic free training.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:08:09

It is not, sadly, a requirement by law for councillors to have training.

When I first started in 2017, a frequent plea from them was,

well we can't afford to do training, we're only a little council.

So we now offer free council induction training and free clerk induction training to all councils.

Following the elections two years ago now, we trained 70 new councillors over the course of two Saturdays.

We did something called Super Saturdays down at the tower and we actually invited councillors in.

We had some experienced councillors there and some experienced clerks there who the new councillors could talk to as well.

And that was very effective and worked very well until one of the light bulbs popped in the projector.

That was quite exciting.

We do do planning, finance and audit training and we do encourage those councillors who

are going to go on a standing committee in one of those disciplines to at least attend

one form of specialist training, be it planning demystified, be it basic finance for councillors

or HR 101, but they should have some skills before they climb into one of those standing

committees.

Clark's Professional Development Programme, I'm a SILCA qualified trainer, which is a

national qualification to A -level standard.

We do webinars, workshops, sessions.

You will see twice a year probably we get to take over the Oculus here and we have big

events going on, which are now nationally recognised.

If you want to go to a great event, go to the one that is hosted together with Buckinghamshire

Council because they recognise that these are brilliant facilities.

Our sponsors love coming here because they get to talk to so many people and it works

really well.

And then continuous learning.

Every day is a learning day, I think particularly in the local government sector.

So the kind of things that very much bite our bottoms within a standards board are HR

issues.

Many councils fail to recognise that they are employers and that as such they are subject

to the employment law.

They just don't get it.

We really have to remind them quite firmly.

We give a lot of HR advice and guidance.

Again, Work Nest, one of our partners, and then we have a smaller partner as well who

is less expensive and perhaps more pragmatic in how the law is implemented.

We constantly provide that.

We are producing policies.

We currently have roadmaps that are out there to help people get through the raft of legislation

with regards to employment, and then managing the ongoing performance.

Why is that a problem? Because quite a few of the issues that perhaps come to the attention of the monitoring officer team here

are related to bullying and harassment and inappropriate behaviour between officers and elected councillors.

and I'm exploring the theory that we would be better off dealing with those complaints

under employment law rather than bringing it to the standards board.

You've got a lot on your plate.

If they are employers and they're breaking the employment law, isn't that where we should

be going to?

Just a thought, you can ponder that one while we look at the next slide.

Working together for Buckinghamshire's communities, obviously we're working with you, we work

very closely with Milton Keynes City Council as well, we also work with the National Association

and with the Society of Local Council Clerks, I'm on the Natural Environment Partnership

Board as well.

We try and make sure that we get town and parish councils involved in conversations

so that they can take steps on the ground to build things like community resilience.

facilitating the communications within the different tiers.

Every so often I have a great day when I write to all of the MPs

on something that has really just pushed me over the edge,

and this week I got to write to North, no, South North, Northamptonshire as well,

so nine letters went out.

Sharing best practise and innovation across councils,

again, my colleagues will know in the Monitoring Officer team

that occasionally the law is completely silent

on what we should do.

Or it tells us what we should do,

but then doesn't tell us when we've got it wrong

what we should do.

And to fill in those gaps we can go around the country

and look for best practise.

So I am one of 43 county officers in England.

You'll all remember the Jackie Weaver moment.

Well I'm your Jackie Weaver for Buckinghamshire

and Milton Keynes.

She's actually a very nice person.

But, you know, so we talk to each other.

We meet once a fortnight and we'll say, okay, we've got a problem here.

Anybody know of a solution?

Anybody got a case study or an example that we can deploy?

And again, we will talk about the impact of any legislative or policy changes that government

are bringing through.

We had a meeting last week and we had MCAHLG come through and talk to us.

Well, they couldn't really tell us very much because right now they know who they've got

But they actually don't know what the next steps might be.

So they were as much in limbo as we are.

But encouraging that collaboration, resilience, and just that continuous improvement.

So I'm going to leave you there in terms of the slides.

If you have any questions, if you want me to take you through any practical examples,

please ask.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:13:52

I think a lot of people take, I don't bring it just how much work is involved in being

a Councillor and any guidance and training that can be offered should be welcomed with

open arms.

I mean certainly we've just dispensed with the District Councils, but when you have the

Parities District and the County Council it's quite difficult to know where the boundaries

lay between each and when you wear a twin hat and know exactly which hat you're wearing

at any given time, so that's been eliminated.

So, no, thank you very much for that.

Does anyone have any questions?

Phil gone straight off.

I had prepped Mel a little bit earlier on

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:14:30

and we speak every now and again anyway.

So the issues I have, and it's really lovely

tea presentation, and you know exactly

where I'm gonna come from, is that it's not lawful

for the parish or town councils to be trained.

It's down to them.

We get trained and we stick to our standards

that we have to. And you know, so out of all of those councillors that are out there, those

town and parish councillors, how many are trained? Because, you know, we come up against

it where some of those councillors aren't and they sort of bridge, we know what the

code of conduct is and we know what this is, but they do know how to use the F word in

meetings. Well, it's true. Um, you know, and they have an attitude. We only had a meeting

the other week where these guys continuously rude to everybody and upset a lady. So how

How do we deal with this?

And it's becoming a bigger problem because the figures are moving upwards rather than

downwards.

So I wouldn't want your job for a start, but how do we deal with that?

It is growing.

The answer to these things is always education.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:15:36

Education, education.

And you have to keep coming at possibly the same topic matter, but from different directions,

until you actually strike the target.

We've had completely changed how we do chairing skills, for example.

I will not train chairing skills online.

I make people come into the room because I think it's really important if they can't

base me in a room on chairing skills, how on earth are they going to cope with a council

meeting?

And we teach how to ask to ensure that they get everybody in the room to participate in

the meeting in the first place.

Hello, Karen.

But also, how to deal with awkward questions,

how to tease information out of some people,

and practically how to say, thank you very much,

we're moving on now to other people that might be

around the table.

So those are very practical elements.

How to then adjourn a meeting, because we need a

comfort break to allow people to calm down,

even down to the steps of when that awkward question

is asked, pick up your bottle of water, take the

top off, have two sips, put the top back on, put the bottle down. You have given your brain

time to get over the guttural response that you were about to make, which might include

colourful language, and actually think through more logically how you're going to respond

and try and reduce the heat rather than escalate it. So we're trying to do those practical

steps of how to deal with it when it kicks off. Preventing it happening is education.

providing free training if we need to.

I am trying to get in and visit councils,

so I've got three visits booked over the next few days

to go in and talk to chairs and to talk to clerks

and give them some coaching to help them forward

because they're in difficulties at the moment.

I really appreciate what you say,

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:17:25

and in practise that is valuable,

but in the real world that's just not happening.

You know, you have chairs that don't know how to chair,

or I'll be careful what I say

because I don't want to be told off on a code of conduct,

but I speak openly.

And some of the chairs just don't chair.

The clerks do not clerk,

or the clerk thinks they own the council.

And there lies some of the problems.

And this is why there's rogue parish councils

and town councils out there.

I hope everyone's not getting too excited on webcast,

reading in, but it's true.

There will always be people who behave badly.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:18:03

Councils will go through troughs.

We do say to people, you are one planning application away from a Jackie Weaver moment.

Even the most well -run council is one planning application from a Jackie Weaver moment.

People get very passionate. It means a great deal to them.

It is hyper -local. It's happening next to them or down the road from them.

And sometimes they forget their manners.

So moving forward, how do we start educating?

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:18:35

I know you say it's not lawful, but it's getting worse.

I can't insist on them coming in,

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:18:41

and I can't insist on them listening to me,

but I can keep beating them on the head

until I do get in there and listen.

Even if it involves, as has happened before,

I go to meetings and just sit in the public gallery.

They do quieten down actually because they're not quite sure why I'm there.

But that can have an impact as well.

Just having somebody in there can help.

For the one meeting and then once you've gone off they go.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:19:09

Chair, thank you.

I do like to indulge you Phil.

Sorry?

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:19:13

I do like to indulge you but we'll try to move on a bit.

I have Councillor Tett and I have Councillor Mormina have indicated they want to talk but

I did see some others on this side.

Councillor Thornton, you know I thought I saw three first.

So please carry on.

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 0:19:28

Oh, wait for the second.

Unfortunately, Mel, I'm going to piggyback

on what Councillor Gaunt was saying.

In terms of best practise, as you said, obviously,

it's not mandatory.

It's not legally required for parish and town councils

to engage with the training.

I'm also conscious about their perceptions

of their own independence and us not dictating as Buckinghamshire

Council that it's our way or the highway.

Are there any examples of best practise or sort of case studies that have been done with other councils where they've managed to engage

particularly the problematic towns and parishes to engage on a voluntary basis and sort of walk that line with

respecting their independence

But also I think as Buckinghamshire Council our duty to make sure that people are

Whole upholding at least the Nolan principles if not a mandatory code of conduct

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:20:22

I think, again, it comes back to what we were saying with Philip.

They are sovereign entities.

They aren't your little cousins.

They are sovereign entities, and that means that your powers are limited as to how much

interference you can get involved in.

The monitoring officers can only get involved if there is a code of conduct issue, although

I'm very pleased to say they have been willing to come out with me.

And when we have heard rumblings of an issue, before it becomes a code, we will arrange

to go in and have a chat, preferably we will go in before a meeting and maybe do half an

hour's training before that meeting starts.

So everybody at that meeting gets to hear a reminder about the code of conduct.

We can't fix them all.

We just keep trying to get them slightly better, each one of them.

Okay, thank you.

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 0:21:19

It was more whether whether or not this the same issues are the councils in terms of unitary or County councils

That have got the same issue where we've got a few rogue parish and town councils and whether anything there's worked before

But I appreciate it's not mandatory. So it may not have happened anywhere else either

Mr. Chairman, this is a national issue

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:21:35

It is a national issue

Okay, we go in this order. I've got

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:21:41

Councillor Tett, Councillor Martin, Councillor Carroll and Councillor Mormina.

So Martin, take it away.

Thanks.

I've got two questions if that's okay.

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:21:50

And I'd just like to say, having dealt with Mel and Balc in the past, I find them an excellent

organisation and a very high regard for the work that they do.

First of all, local government reorganisation is taking place at the moment across much

of the country in England.

We've been through that and you referred to that in your presentation.

question. Are you actually being asked by other areas about the experience you've had

in terms of the journey to unitary for your upper tier councils and what that means as

far as parish and town councils are concerned? Because there's a lot of learning and again

I just I'm really keen that we share that learning rather than everybody relearning

it the hard way, you know, literally county and district by district. So that's my first

So I don't know if I can answer that one,

and I've got a very simple quick one after this.

As they always are.

Thank you, Martin.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:22:44

I also chair the national gathering of county offices.

So local government reorganisation

is obviously a key topic at the moment.

I have already spoken, been invited to speak

at Hampshire Association of Local Councils.

Buckinghamshire is seen as a council

who had a relatively painless transition to unitary.

I do think we're at a vulnerable time in terms of Buckinghamshire Council, six years into

what is essentially a ten -year project, because that's how long it takes to turn a ship of

this size around.

And consequently, we are seeing some of our experienced hands who are with us during that

transition now leaving us.

And the risk to us as a larger local authority is that we lose that experience.

So, we take that on board when we're talking to those other unitaries.

We do talk about handing assets down, forming new councils.

There are a lot of new councils being formed, and some of the local associations are now

producing templates for actually how do you get a new council that's going.

And we have a resource pool that we are sharing across all of the local associations.

and we were invited to go to Worcestershire, ALC, to talk about unitary.

I did try and get somebody from BUCKS to come along with me.

They weren't so keen, so I'm taking somebody from the SLCC with me,

so at least we've got the officer's perspective,

and I'm going to go up and present the BUCKS perspective.

So if you want to change your mind, Martin, you are welcome to join me.

I always didn't get the email in the invitation.

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:24:32

And just an observation, one of the things that concerns me

is here we had effectively most of our county

become a unitary.

The government for its own, I suspect,

mainly political reasons has decided to break up

most of the counties into very small units.

Many of them, in my view, are not financially viable

in anything like the medium term and heading for disaster.

So I think the more advice they can get, quite frankly,

at this stage the better.

My second question, which is very, very different,

is in my ward we have, I think it's six parish councils.

I mean, they're very different entities,

each and every one of them,

very much around the personality

quite often of the chairman and so on.

Some struggle, some are very, sorry,

some are very fully staffed with councillors

and have no trouble recruiting.

Others really struggle to attract councillors,

and I just wondered whether baulk provides any guidance to parishes around how they make

the role of a parish councillor attractive to ordinary residents, because they seem to

mainly go on, you know, JK Rowling books about local councils.

A couple of vacancies.

Yeah, exactly. Whereas actually, you know, the world is very

different, but some really struggle to actually, and are currently running with a significant

number of vacancies, what support does BALT give them?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:25:58

Again, we use, we have various resources that they can use in terms of advertising and also

informing candidates. We have something called the Elections Toolkit, which describes very

clearly what the role of a Councillor is. We have changed some of our training, we're

trying to ensure that Councillors know that they are there as the vision engine of a Council,

They have a vision for their community and it is for the clerks to take on the governance aspect.

Councillors are idea merchants, officers are ones that make it happen in a lawful manner,

so we try to make it sound more appealing rather than worrying about emptying the dog bins.

I think that in some neighbourhoods such as one to the north of Aylesbury, a new council,

I found it difficult because the new houses that were grown there are all young families,

both parents going out to work, children at the weekend.

They don't have time, any kind of voluntary service or participation in the local council.

They're not available.

Parish councils typically meet during supper, bath time and homework times.

And those parents have been out all day.

it's quite hard for them to find that further time.

But then there are other communities

where that is not an issue.

Phil raised the point very strongly,

as did Kelly, about poor behaviour.

That does result in a democratic deficit.

Good people do not want to be involved

in a council that is behaving badly.

Good people do not want to be exposed

to having their integrity called out,

or even accusations of racism or misogyny,

which is used sometimes just to score cheat points.

So people don't want to be involved in that.

And until we have sanctions, properly biting sanctions,

I don't see how we're going to recover from that Mr Chairman.

Just one very quick observation which is,

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:27:59

given the enormous housing growth agenda across the county,

I think the role of something like BALC and advising how parish councils are formed,

in some cases around these big new communities will be particularly important.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:28:14

Cllr David Carroll - 0:28:22

Cllr Karen Dickson - 0:28:27

Cllr David Carroll - 0:28:41

Yes, just going back to the same lines as Martin, and you know I meet a lot of the public

in our area, and I think that's really the big part of the job.

And so many people say to me, it's very daunting to meet the public.

I can't take this job on, it's very daunting.

So now, and present parish councils as well, it's very daunting to go to a public meeting.

We have loads in our area, you know that.

So what could you put in place somewhere to say, look, we can give some train on meeting

the public.

It's a very big deal, really, isn't it?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:29:17

Yes, it is, and we do have an excellent member services partner who specialise in providing

councillors with training, public speaking, public writing.

The company was formed by a former district and county councillor, so they're very familiar

with public interest and how that public interest might be performed, sometimes well and sometimes

less friendly.

So we do try and provide that training.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:29:44

Absolutely, you shouldn't drape it.

It should be fun.

It should be fun coming to a meeting.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:29:49

This is where you're going to change your community.

You're going to do something good for the people you live next door to.

It should be a good place.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:30:01

Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Chairman. I've been a parish

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:30:11

councillor for 12 years or just over and a chairman of parish council for about five

years. And I now attend about 16 parishes in my ward a month. Not them all. Patrick

Féile, Councillor Féile, splits them with me.

And one of the points I've always made

is that a parish council is not a political platform.

However, especially around election times

and post -election times,

you will get parish councillors who will get on the soapbox.

So, I've sort of adopted that principle for 12 years now,

whether it's right or whether it's wrong,

I've seen have got away with it.

The other point I'd like to make is that

I find it very strange that it's not compulsory

for parish counsellors to have training.

Now, and one of my biggest concerns

as I went around over the last couple of months,

I seen things happening at parish councils

and all of a sudden I started asking,

have you adopted the Nolan Principles?

And you refer to them in your presentation.

Most parish clerks that I spoke to and councillors had never heard of it.

So, could there be a vehicle...

Because I think that the Nolan Principles are very important in public life.

Probably the most important Bible when it comes to public life.

So could a vehicle be put in place by your organisation that says that all parish town and unitary councillors for that matter sign up to the Nolan Principles?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:32:06

Thank you Frank. Actually you all already do because you are required by law to adopt the Code of Conduct as are all town and parish councils.

and the Nolan principles are clearly stated within the Code of Conduct.

So they have all already agreed to follow the Nolan principles.

So why then are they saying they never heard of it?

They're scamps.

What can I say?

They're scamps.

We do constant training.

We do free January training.

We ask our monitoring officers to join us and our MK team to join us as well.

We have the head of legal from the National Association come online as well.

We have two seminars coming later this year to a room near you on standards, one generally

on standards and one on the impact of AI on standards because we're now seeing quite an

impact in terms of complaints and grievances and so on being authored by AI and scaring

the wits out of those who are receiving them thinking, well, they must be right because

using all the legal language. Of course, the AI is hallucinating or hasn't received the

right information in the first place, but it is daunting nevertheless.

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:33:24

Sorry, Mr Chairman, just one point. Would it be useful for your organisation to send

out maybe once a year a reminder that every Councillor has adopted and must act with the

Nolan principles?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:33:50

We do. We do write to the clerks more than once a year. However, I do not have a database

of all of the Councillors' email addresses because many Councillors don't have an official

Council email address, so I cannot force my email communications into their personal mailboxes.

Because they have to opt in.

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:34:14

No, but, sorry Mr Chairman, I mean, when I speak to parish councillors and how I've

always worked is that everything has to go, all communications go through the clerk.

Look, nobody in the public, in my village, needs to have my Steepr Kleden Parish Council email address.

Because everything should go and we put it out on social media and we put it out in the local magazines and whatever.

You know, if you've any queries, any problems with Steepr Kleden, for example, email clark at steeprkledenparishcouncil .gov .uk.

And even when I correspond as the unitary counsellor,

I will not correspond with individual counsellors.

I'll give you an example where I had a couple of weeks ago

were having a new store opening in my village

and they've applied for a liquor licence.

And I was the only one notified.

But I sent it at Parish Clark

and then she distributes it out to all the counsellors.

And I think that's a better way of working.

So, and I understand, you know, you won't have every book,

but you should probably have every clerk's address.

And then, and the clerks have responsibilities

to communicate with their county.

That's what they're paid to do.

I do, so I write to them every week

and I give them legal updates every week.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:35:35

Plus, I'll pick a topic that I want them to do some homework on.

I'll look at my inbox and see what subject matter

is causing the most interest at the moment.

And I'll give them an update on that.

Those go out every week.

Occasionally, I even force them onto my colleagues here as well.

It's called The View.

We ask that the clerks circulate that to councillors.

I don't write it in a very formal fashion, so it is more appealing.

I bold the key words.

And we have a very useful little sentence to help them remember what the Nolan principles

are, which we have taught to everybody that comes along to the training, which is, a happy

sailor loves old islands.

And if you want to throw respect into there as well, then you can have a really happy sailor loves old islands

Which is quite fun because of course bucks is the furthest point from the sea

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:36:27

Thank you very much. I've got councillor meaner. I think John did you indicate as well you did make it's a council more Mina. Thank you

Thank you

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:36:33

You know, I think every organisation one faced with a problem

you know, the first thing they think is we need to be able to do a bit of training.

Now, personally, I don't think training is a panacea,

and I speak as somebody who's done ethics training for a living.

So, but I think you've put your finger in it

when you said about the democratic deficit,

because I think that's really at the heart.

I mean, let's remember that there might be a few bad apples, but by and large, parish

councils and parish councillors are good people, right?

But it is true that it's a self -selecting group of people, some of whom have been around

the shop for years and years and years and that can harden certain behaviours. So I wonder

if one, I don't want to say solution, but one approach could be to limit the number

of years or number of terms that a chair can serve because I have not 16 but, you know,

much fewer parish councils in my ward and some chairs have been around for many, many

years and there is a tendency to, you know, run the show as it were.

So I think one option could be to limit the number of terms that a councillor can serve

as a chair, also to bring fresh ideas and new diversity.

There is a lot of differences between parish councils.

Some are very, very well run and I am very lucky to have in my ward one of the few parish

councils who have a gold local council.

Local council award scheme.

That's it, right?

Do you encourage people to join those schemes

because having or aspiring to silver, gold,

even bronze can drive behaviours,

it acts a bit as an incentive to live out

the Nolan principles, to have robust governance

approaches and governance processes, do you encourage that actively?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:39:19

Yes, and actually at our Executive Board away day this year I was challenged particularly

to start a programme encouraging more councils to get involved in the local council awards

scheme but also in the Civility and Respect Pledge that councils can also sign up to and

and then there's an individual councillor pledge as well

to uphold good behaviour, once again,

and to act in a civil and respectful manner.

We don't go to council meetings to meet our friends,

but everybody there has an equal right to be there,

and their different opinion to yours must still be respected.

We talk about anti -bullying and harassment

from within the room as well, and we say,

any bullying poster should not only just face outside,

they should face inside as well,

because we all have a responsibility to call out if we see one of our colleagues being unfairly treated around the table.

It shouldn't just rest with the chair.

With regards to the term of the chair, I'd love to limit the term so that we get everybody learning what it is like to be in the chair,

but sadly legislation doesn't allow for it at this stage.

Eric Pickles did a lot to change things with his locality act, but he failed on a number of areas

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:40:37

Do you encourage yes, we do actively we are actively encouraging them, but it's quite an expensive process

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:40:44

It's quite an expensive resource process

So if you've only got a council who employs a clerk for 12 hours a week

They're busy delivering the local community needs.

They don't have time to go through that as well.

And it is quite an onerous procedure.

Thank you very much.

Mel, thanks very much for turning your time and talking through the chair.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:41:04

But you're really in the driving seat of this in this instance.

So people expect the answers from you, not necessarily from me.

So John, please, then we'll follow you up with Sherilyn.

Thank you, Chairman.

Cllr John Chilver - 0:41:17

I just wanted to follow up on what David said earlier about an increasingly daunting role

of the parish council's faith.

I think part of this is the increasing bureaucracy, increasing demands and responsibilities that

are being imposed by central government, more complex forms to fill in, more data to be

provided, more legislation to follow and more paperwork to read.

and this could be very off -putting, I think, for what is a voluntary role.

So I'm just wondering, do you or your network lobby central government

to try and reduce increasing bureaucratic demands and burdens on parish councils?

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:41:59

Thank you, John. Yes, we do.

We work together with the National Association of Local Councils to lobby central government.

One example last week that I found is that many village fates and things like 5K runs

are being cancelled because the charities can't afford

to purchase traffic management professionals

to manage traffic for 20 minutes.

The qualification, the legislation requires

a qualification that is suitable for heavy roadworks.

Whereas what we need is a qualification

to allow us to safely hold back traffic

or direct traffic into a field for local parking.

And so I am currently lobbying together

with the National Association that a new qualification

be brought forward that charities and local town and parish councils, particularly those

small parish councils who are doing hyperlocal events, something that they can do to be safe

but also that is proportionate with responsibilities on the day.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:43:01

And Sharon.

Thank you, Chair.

So thank you very much for your presentation and all the answering to the questions.

Knowing myself about induction training that you have done and bespoke training for parishes

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:43:14

that I am involved with and the online courses too, I would encourage anybody here to attend

those courses when they are available and to echo what has been said about the weekly

contribution that you give to all the clerks.

There are clerks out there that give it to us every week.

So thank you very much for doing what you are doing and I urge people that are watching

online to stand forward and become councils in the future. Thank you.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:43:44

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:43:46

Thank you very much Sharon. Just a couple of observations before I've been filled back in.

I know from my own experience of having sat on a whole variety of

different councils that within Buckinghamshire the difference between each of the

parishes is quite enormous. We have those that wish to rule the world ultimately

and become their own unitary, and those that bulk the idea that any more precept than enough

to do the village fair is all they want.

So John's comments regarding the amount of bureaucracy that's involved, one of our point

of points might say which, but over the years I got a phone call saying we haven't got a

booze licence, and a point of point without a booze licence is pointless.

So fortunately one of the other traders on site had already arranged their licence

And so we were able to agree with the council to expand that licence

And says it's important that people know who to speak to

What what to what they've got to consider and as David said it's very daunting

Walk into a town council and walk into these parishes

They're all so, so different.

And so even just asking a question of those Councillors can be very intimidating.

We want to make them as friendly as possible.

Also a lot of the reasons why people become Councillors, sometimes are very short term.

And they're only looking to sort out a personal issue, which goes back to the Nolan principles.

And therefore they're actually entering the idea without the service to the public.

It's service to themselves and that's that's the thing we've really got to avoid. So that's my bit

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:45:35

Okay, Phil. Sorry kind to allow me again. I find it very daunting going into meetings, too

But anyway, I just like to make a proposal not a question is that you know

Councils have their job at town and parish council

We understand this will want you to do but when it comes to clerks like you say the clerks are employed by the council

So us as unitary counsellors have to be a bit careful how we approach the clerks because

we have to remember that they are employed by the parish.

Now some clerks are fantastic and other clerks are not as fantastic.

Some clerks also take over whereas others don't.

So what I'm trying to say is a clerk has their remit, sometimes they drift.

What would be nice is for maybe us to understand, I would certainly like to understand,

is to come to one of your training meetings with clerks so we could sit in the background

and just listen and watch and understand how those clerks see their job.

Because sometimes I have a lack of understanding, well I don't have a lack of understanding,

but I find it a bit challenging at times, like many others.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:46:42

I think there is always a temptation to fill in the gaps.

If you are the clerk and you have a poorly functioning set of councillors, there is a

temptation to fill in the gaps and we have to manage their role and ensure that they're

there just to make sure that what the councillors have provided in policy is lawfully delivered.

It is quite difficult, the role of clerk, because you are both poacher and gatekeeper

to some extent, and because clerks do have statutory duties outside of those that the

council give them.

There are certain things that a clerk has a responsibility to do that the council can't

say, no, you can't do that.

So it is an ongoing battle.

And there are some clerks, I think, taking on board what the council has said with regard

to the tenure of councillors.

Sometimes I think it's quite good if clerks moved every so often as well and got to grips

with the new council.

and we're starting to encourage clerks to go to parishes off -patch, so not necessarily

the parish where they live.

Sometimes having that level of separation and going to a next -door parish can actually

work quite well.

I don't have a silver bullet.

You are very welcome to attend the courses, Philip, as are any of our councillors.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:48:03

All on our website.

I'll send you the link.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:48:06

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:48:08

You need to use the mic for people.

Sorry, Chair.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:48:19

I was simply asking for those of us who are not parish councillors, and I appreciate there

are very few of us, are we allowed to take part in some or all of your events?

Yes.

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:48:36

We absolutely welcome and we think it's really important, actually,

because at those events it is a really brilliant opportunity

for people to come along and just talk to each other

and just learn a little bit about each other

and realise that we are working together.

And Wendy has joined a number of our events.

She's smiling very quietly there.

But Wendy has been to a number of our events

and engaged with both her ward Councillor Hatton

and her parish counsellor hat on over the years.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:49:09

Thank you very much, Val, that's been very, very informative.

I think one of the most daunting things about joining accounts

is realising just how much responsibility you have,

especially with the public purse,

because there's a lot of misunderstanding as to where the money comes from

and it certainly doesn't grow on trees.

I've looked for them and I can't find them myself, so.

It's understanding that if you can provide one thing with one hand, you have to take

away with the other necessarily, and getting that balance right is very, very difficult.

And that stems just from the local village fate all the way up to the biggest services

in terms of transport, et cetera, and welfare here.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of the whole committee.

You're always welcome.

You're welcome to stay.

You've probably got something better to do, I'm sure.

Is there any other questions or anything anyone wants to ask on subject, please?

There's very few, sir.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I think that's the view of all of us.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you again, I'm sure.

Thank you.

Okay.

And we will quietly waft on to – where are we now?

All right.

This is the community government's request from the parish councils.

6 Community Governance Requests - Parish Councils

Glenn and Tom, something to say on this for us, please?

I'll start, if that's okay, Chairman.

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:50:39

Just to clarify what the Committee is considering today, this is not the motion that recently

came to full council requesting a county -wide review.

That will be considered at the next scheduled meeting in October, and today the Committee

is considering the request from the two parish councils for community governance reviews.

So undertaking a community governance review is the statutory responsibility of Buckinghamshire

Council as the principal council in the county, and furthermore, this falls under the remit

of the Standards and General Purposes Committee.

There are two ways the council can undertake these.

Firstly, if Buckinghamshire Council receives a petition signed by a particular percentage

of the electorate in a parish area that requests one, this percentage varies by area and is

Typically, smaller electorates require a higher percentage of the electorate.

And secondly, Buckinghamshire Council can choose to undertake a community governance

review of its own accord.

Typically, this comes from a formal request from a town or a parish council.

In front of you today are the two requests that we have received from parish councils.

The recommendation is to set up the community governance review working group, as this was

previously established during the last term of the Council as the method for the Committee

to consider these requests in more detail, draw up terms of reference for the reviews,

and to undertake required consultations as appropriate. And you can see in the report,

sort of, the structure for that. And then that's it from me. And if, Glenn,

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:52:08

there's anything else to add? Thank you, Chairman. The question would – is

before you is whether to undertake a review or not.

You don't have to undertake a review.

You don't have to set up the terms of reference

and take these things on when it is using, as Tom says,

the voluntary power of the council

to undertake a review at any time.

As Tom mentioned, there is the duty

to keep parish arrangements under review.

That's effectively what you're doing.

As Tom mentioned, under the previous term,

The committee set up a working group of itself, it will be an informal working group, a meeting

of however many of you wish to be involved in that if you choose to do that, to look

at things in more detail and then to recommend back to the main committee whether to undertake

a community governance review with a view to, in this instance, increasing the number

of councillors for the councils concerned.

So it's a matter of whether you wish to and that's a point that the recommendation indicates

you might want to leave to the working group to go into in more detail to determine whether

to take these things forward and if so, framing those terms of reference to come back to the

main committee to green light it or not.

Thank you.

I believe Councillor Ted has something to say.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:53:28

Yeah, I'm a bear of a little brain on this and I'm slightly confused if I'm absolutely

honest with you.

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:53:31

The heading of this title Community Governance Reviews -Parishes, it sounds all encompassing,

yet the detail inside seems to refer specifically to two parish councils.

So were we, not preempting any of this, were we to agree this, the review would be of those

two parish councils.

So my next question is how does this fit in with the motion that went before council and

which is being referred at the next meeting, which as I understand it is a comprehensive

review of the entire county and its parishes.

So is it appropriate we pass this which might preempt a decision on the next one or if we

do this, are these two parishes therefore exempt from a countywide review, yeah? Or

what? I mean, to me it just feels confusing to have this and then potentially followed

by a separate motion on a countywide programme. And, sorry, just very quickly to finish. Were

we to do this, that would give us two parishes that potentially would be exempt. We've already

had a relatively recent review of the unparished area in Wickham, could we therefore have a

review of the entire county with those areas effectively carved out because they will already

have been done? How does this work? I don't understand. Thank you.

If I may, Chairman? Yes.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:55:10

Yeah. This is exactly as you say, Councillor Tett. This particular report in front of you

is just for those two parishes. So if you wanted to remit this to the working group

of the committee, the committee would be presented with information which would help you determine

whether or not to take forward the proposals of those two parishes.

So that's clear.

It is about those two.

As regards the wider motion that has been put forward at full council, which has been,

again, remitted to this committee, in which there will be a more substantive report given

the implications of that motion for you to consider at the next meeting, that report,

which would come to you in October, based on what the motion is, is to undertake a review

of the whole county. That could almost be answered in a yes or no way. No, we don't

wish to do that. Yes, we do. If the answer was no, we don't wish to do that, then you

are still left with those particular parishes and those arrangements which this council

Council is already set up to continuously review the Council as and when issues occur,

be that development in an area which makes you want to look at it further, the workload

of the Council which means they want to up the number of Councillors. You're reviewing

something on a more piecemeal basis. So if one was to not deal with this today, defer

it, pending consideration of the motion next time, you would still, whatever the outcome

of that motion still be able to return back to these two matters. What you will have lost,

for want of a better phrase, is a couple of months where you could have started to look

at these two and determine whether you wish to take these two forward or not.

But if it's okay, I'd just like to quickly – it's such a complicated matter, I just

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:56:57

think we need to be really clear what the options are here and to try to help us through

that. So one option we have is we could agree the review on these two, yes, and then we

We could, for example, accept further requests on a case -by -case basis from other parishes

as appropriate.

So we don't need to agree the motion that's been referred from full council.

We could actually literally, and I'm just checking this as an option, as and when a

parish thinks it needs to have a specific review, it could submit a written request

similar to these two, it could come to this committee, we could then agree or not to have

such a review.

That's a perfectly acceptable way forward, yes?

I just want to cheque that's correct.

If I may, Chairman, that's exactly right, yes.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:57:48

And part of the report which we'll bring for that substantive item in October

will specify exactly that.

Okay, Kazim, what do we know?

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:57:57

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:57:59

Yes, thank you, because it really follows from the previous question.

I've read the guidance, and the guidance says that it's good practise to conduct the governance

review every 10, 15 years.

My question is, how many parishes do we have that haven't had a governance review in that

period?

And unlike Councillor Ted, when I looked at this, I worried that we might have to conduct

several kind of drip -drop reviews that would be a lot, very time consuming.

And so I wonder whether we should, regardless of the motion that is going to come here in

October, whether we should consider looking at parishes, if you haven't had a governance

review within 10, 15 years, particularly in light of what the local plans bring in, in

terms of population growth, I imagine that we will have many more parishes saying, actually,

do you know what? We're going to have seven more thousand houses. We need to increase

a number of Councillors, and we could find ourselves really overwhelmed with requests

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:59:32

just like this. Yeah, and again, that's the kind of detail

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:59:36

and the options available which would be coming in the report for the next meeting, precisely

that. There are a number of ways in which this Council can carry out its duty to keep

the arrangements under review. The guidance that you mention does give an indication that

a holistic review of a whole council if you wanted as an authority to set out to review

the whole council. It would only envisage that under the guidance every 10 to 15 years.

That's quite a Haley's Comet sort of thing to come around. Insofar as that motion coming

in October is asking effectively the council to commit to doing the whole council review,

there are other things that council could do, as I've said, to achieve that end. It

has already set up the arrangements that it has with the terms of reference of a working

group and a reference back to this committee to pick up those instances. So reviews are

taking place as and when necessary. And we will be reflecting to the committee precisely

that point. You already have certain arrangements in place. This is one option you can continue

just to do that. You could do a whole review and commit yourself. You could think, well,

that's not what we want to do particularly. It doesn't seem particularly sensible. Perhaps

we look at authorities that haven't been reviewed or some such there are several things that could be

done

under the banner of keeping arrangements under review

Councillor Kelly

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:01:03

Thank you chair and I think just to sort of keep us I think first of all, thank you councillor tech for clarifying

So I think there's a bit of an overlap here and I wouldn't want us to preempt what's coming in October

But in terms of the agenda item today

I think that's a good point.

Assuming that most of us, I would hope, believe that

communities should be able to request the kind of

representation and structure changes that they need and we

should be bottom up in that sense.

And that drawing power down is different from reorganising

communities from the centre.

So rather than bucks council, unilaterally deciding who needs

reviewing and who doesn't for recommendation B,

you mentioned expression of interest.

And I was just wondering if we could get some more information about what

expressions have actually been received,

but besides from warden and water Mead and also just what an expression of

interest would be. So for example,

would one bucks counsellor be enough to say,

I want you to review all the parishes and towns in my ward.

Would it need to be one town counsellor, one parish counsellor, et cetera. How,

how do we get that information in and is this the only two requests that we've had?

So yeah, those are the only two formal requests we've had from parish council. Typically we

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:02:12

would require the council to make a motion then to agree and that to be then a letter

is written by the clerk to us. If a council were just to request that then we would consider

that but it's, you know, likely that that wouldn't be really be enough for us to be

formally considered. But yeah, we typically from a parish council perspective would require

them to agree it at full council and then the clerk would write to us with

their formal request with more details okay so if we were to accept

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:02:41

recommendation B then we would be within that remit that it would only happen if

the town or parish council specifically requested and this working group would

only be looking at the two current requests and presumably you'd need

consent from this committee if there were further requests in future and the

working group we're going to consider those is that right that's correct

brilliant thank you

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:03:02

Just to say for information's sake, there was a letter received in from the Amherstham

Town Council saying that in the view of the fact that the last review was taken three

years ago, is it really necessary and was there any further demand?

Were you part of that decision?

Yes, sorry, can I just clarify?

I am an Amherstham town councillor.

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:03:22

In the minutes on Amherstham town council, I had to declare that I'm going to be in this

and that we're voting on this agenda item rather than the one

in October. So I had no contribution to that discussion but I was there to

witness it. So I know what their position is in regards to October but for this

it's more about that sort of transparency of are we sanctioning

Buck's council through this committee today to review councils where it may

only be one council that's requested a review or just what is in the agenda in

the two requests and any further expressions of interest we would presumably need to approve

on this committee would need to approve on a case by case basis.

What I'm concerned about in short is effectively not us opening the flood gates by approving

this today and then just having loads of requests, no idea what the working group is doing and

then them coming back in a year saying we've reviewed 100 town councils or something.

Thanks for clarifying.

John?

Cllr John Chilver - 1:04:27

My question really follows on from what's just been said because I was wondering, is

it really necessary to limit it to these two requests if we get more expressions of interest?

Before February, couldn't they be included in the reviews?

Because until January, we're just agreeing the terms of reference for the working group

and the actual consideration of the application doesn't start until next February.

So could we not include any further expressions of interest in the work that the working group

carries on?

Cherylin?

Councillor Bateman.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:05:02

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 1:05:04

So do we have to have a working group to discuss this?

If two parishes have put in a request, is their request valid?

Have we got the clerk, the chair, the parish councillors supporting it?

I'm just wondering why it's such hard work if they found that the workload is too much

and they have put in these requests.

Do we have to go through the working committee?

Is that putting off other councils to have that expression?

Regardless of what might come in the next meeting, I'm thinking about these two parishes

that have put in a request to have their numbers increased and clearly have thought about it.

Thank you.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:05:42

Looking from my own personal perspective, they are looking to expand their numbers in

the likelihood that their populations are likely to expand.

So at the moment you've got whatever number of parish councillors there are represented,

I think it's 416 people in one particular location.

If one were to co -opt councillors onto that parish at this time, those people would be

represent the new residents. So there's that aspect to give it consideration for.

As far as the workload is concerned I'm afraid I'd have to turn over to Glenn to give you

a better indication of how much he sees that we need to apply to this in terms of time.

I think the comments from Amersham town council are welcome in so much as that these changes

are happening all the time. And when we got 90 ,000 houses to provide, how many parishes

are going to come to us and say well actually we can have another 30 families in our village

so therefore we need a bigger parish council, we'd be here all week, or sorry all year.

So it's something that has to be considered and I think that from that perspective it's

up to advice from the officers that I think it's a difficult one because we're only looking

at two relatively small councils and it's something that affects all of us so we should

be looking at the bigger picture.

Wendy you've got something to add.

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 1:07:09

I just wanted to ask, if we set this working group up, is it a standing working group or

is it just to consider these two applications?

So would we then have to duplicate it all over again if we get further applications?

My other question is, we cannot dictate to the parishes, can we, whether they ask for

this or not?

If they ask for it, do we have to then do something?

On that latter point, do we have to do something if the parishes ask for it?

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:07:38

No, you don't.

That's the difference between them asking this council for reputable bodies that they

are statutory authorities to consider doing what they're asking, increasing the number

of councillors.

They're just asking, trying to tap into this council's voluntary ability to undertake a

review as and when it sees fit, this council sees fit.

Should those parish councils wish to put this beyond doubt and make the authority have to

undertake a community governance review, they would need to submit a petition under the

relevant legislation with a relevant percentage of electors.

So that's what would take this out of your hands as something as to whether to do it

and make sure you'd just be then considering how to do it and when to and under what terms.

In this instance, it is a simple request to use your voluntary powers as this body to

commission looking as to whether to do these now or not.

And would the working group be a standing one or not?

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 1:08:39

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:08:41

Effectively, it is a standing group because it's been established by the committee and

not disbanded since.

So it exists as a framework to be used specifically so that every time something like this crops

And about three or four years ago, there were quite a few parishes wanting to do certain things and this committee

You know further in its previous iteration determined that it would better to have a standing arrangement of a working group

That could decant the detail as council abatement says is that that much detail to be considered in this particular instance?

Maybe yes, maybe no depends what how detail the conversation goes

whether it brings in other substantive matters like councillor Tett mentioned about the motion and the

framing and whether others should come in or not.

So to save agenda time in full public session, the previous version of this committee determined

it was best to have that standing arrangement such that that working group, so all members

of this committee, as many as wish to take part, would then make that recommendation

back to this committee with more detail with a particular yes or no.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:09:49

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:09:54

I completely understand Councillor Mormina's point about the local plan.

We have to be very clear the local plan does not exist.

The local plan at the moment only has the status of a recommendation from this cabinet,

this council's cabinet.

It's got about another year and a half while it goes through the various stages of representation,

consultation, examination by an independent inspector.

There'll be numerous developers who put in counter bids and so on.

So we have no idea what the local plan and its distribution of housing will be at the

end of that process.

So I don't think we can assume the plan will be the basis for reallocating wards and looking

at boundaries and membership.

So I'm personally parking that as an issue at the moment.

I personally don't have an issue with looking at these two requests which would come bottom up from parishes.

I'm very concerned and I'm preempting slightly the next discussion, next meeting, on a comprehensive review of every single ward and parish across the entire county,

with the resourcing and the time that that involves ahead of the local plan.

My personal view would be to agree these two and we may in the working party then subsequently

agree or not agree but I think at this stage we're just being asked to refer it to the

working party and then any other requests that come in that have justification based

upon workload or whatever, again I think we could look at on a case by case basis.

I don't think we can anticipate growth under a local plan that currently has no status.

So my personal recommendation is entirely up to the rest of the committee would be to

agree that these two go to our working party for consideration and then when we have the

next meeting I will probably say much the same again about the resource and time involved

in preempting a local plan that doesn't currently exist.

Thank you Chairman.

I believe there's a proposal.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:12:09

Cllr David Carroll - 1:12:13

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:12:17

Thank you very much.

I was going to say it sounded like common sense.

If we could.

Kelly, please.

Thank you.

Sorry.

just to stir the pot a bit more. I'm also in principle happy to agree with that

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:12:38

because miracles do happen on this committee. However if we approve for

these two requests to be considered by the working group would we have the

power as the standards committee to approve each time a new request comes in?

What my concern is basically is if we okay this are we okay in all future

requests and the working group to just tick over and get on with it or can we

just approve these two for now and then get a power to approve each time there is a request

basically to kind of assign to the agenda of the working group which request they consider.

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:13:15

My proposal is very clear. These two. If we receive subsequent ones we have the same discussion

and we can either agree to put them to the working party or not.

That's right. That's how it would work.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say as well.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:13:28

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:13:29

Yes, it is a sensible suggestion.

Is there a but coming?

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:13:35

Well, yeah, of course there's a but coming.

All I'm going to say is that, yes, the local plan does not have any legal status yet,

But all I'm going to say is that we don't want to find ourselves unprepared and having

to deal with things that we hadn't anticipated.

I would just try to strike a note of caution on saying, well, we don't need to worry about

the local plan because it hasn't been approved yet.

I think we ought to be thinking and preparing for what is to come.

That was my but.

If Councillor Mormina knows what the approved local plan will be by the end of 2027, that

would be really useful.

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:14:27

And if she has any hints for maybe horse racing or the national lottery, I'd also take those.

Because we just don't know.

I'm sorry, I'm being flippant.

But it's a serious point, which is the local plan could change, could, not will, but could

change very significantly from what the cabinet has agreed by the time all the developers

invested interests have had their say therefore we just don't know today what

that local plan is going to look like well we know we need to find space for

many more houses we know that for sure

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:15:01

okay council Thornton I think this is why the request points important because

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:15:08

councillor Tetz right we don't know it may not get approved etc but the town

and parish councils will be trying to preempt to make sure they've got the

relevant structures in place presumably and so we could have a whole flood of

requests in anticipation before we actually get the final approval of the

local plan and so it's how we do with that I also have like a an amendment to

recommendation one if we want to develop that by more so happy to support the

current proposal as long as we're all clear on what the remit is that we're

Can I suggest we just put the motion that I proposed, which may or may not, and it's

being seconded by Councillor Carroll.

And if it's carried, that's great.

If it's rejected, then we go back to the recommendation of the report.

I'm happy to have the proposal.

From my understanding is we're dipping our big toe in, having a little look.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:15:59

And if we do get a lot of other requests, then we'll know from the knowledge of carrying

out this small investigation whether we should follow on with those or whether it's going

cause more of a problem, so I'm happy to put it to the vote.

Is everybody clear?

We're basically agreeing with these two, referring them to the committee, which again will subsequently

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:16:19

look at them afresh.

Any further requests from parishes will go the same route on a case by case basis, so

that's the proposal that's on the table.

Is that unanimous?

Miracles do happen. No, you didn't agree to this.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:16:47

I'm going to rather abstain because I missed the first 15 minutes of the discussion. So

I'm going to do questions. So please excuse me, I'm rather going to abstain.

Cllr Karen Dickson - 1:16:53

That's fine. There's no reason why you shouldn't on that basis. Perfectly acceptable.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:16:56

Okay, great.

We can move on to the Code of Conduct review.

Tom?

7 Code of Conduct Review Q1 - 2026/27

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:17:14

Yes, in front of you is the Code of Conduct Q1 complaints from April to June 2026.

As always, there's the anonymized versions of the Code of Conduct complaints we've received

in the appendices.

Just to provide an update on complaint five of the Buckinghamshire Councillor complaints,

which was open at the time of the agenda publication, this has now been closed at the initial assessment

stage as it was deemed that the Councillor acted appropriately in accordance with the

Code of Conduct.

So headlines from this report, the number of Code of Conduct's complaints received

from about Buckinghamshire Councillors has decreased.

We received six complaints in Q1.

This is compared to 10 from Q4 of last year, and then from the comparative Q1 of last year,

it was 13.

Broadly, parish council complaints remain at roughly the same level, although there

was a slight decrease from Q4.

There were 18 complaints received during this period, and it's worth noting that six of

these complaints are related to a single parish council.

And on that, I think Miles has alluded to it, the monetary officer team has held a training

session with this parish council on the Code of Conduct, and this was held at the beginning

of July, which was well received, and we also didn't understand that mediation has been

held between particular councils at this parish council to assist with that.

And then I think if there's any questions about this, about the process in general,

I know there are some councils that are new to the committee here, happy to take them,

or if anyone else has anything else to add.

Thank you very much.

I think this brings us back around to our initial presentation by Mel and the different

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:18:48

ways of dealing with these things to try and help the situation in terms of training, but

also budding, but sometimes budding just causes one person to pass on their information to

the next and say that's the way we do it when actually it's not the best.

So if anyone has any specific issues with this and want to answer, then perhaps we'll

get them forward now.

No, all good, great. Oh, sorry, Council Member.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:19:16

Sorry, I do have a question actually. I notice that freedom of expression is often cited in dismissals.

And I was looking at the annexes, right?

I'm referring to that.

And I know from talking to residents that, you know, it is a bone of contention, really.

And it's also difficult to distinguish when an individual is speaking in a personal capacity

as opposed to as a counsellor because these identities often spilling to one another.

So my question here is if the current guidance on, particularly on social media conduct,

but also conduct offline, is sufficiently clear to prevent these repeated borderline

cases.

So we do provide some training.

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:20:28

There is social media guidance on available to counsellors, which I think is on Bursnay,

yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I think we do generally try and advise counsellors to really split them up and be very clear.

So perhaps if it's not clear from the perspective, then we can tighten that up.

But we sort of say, you know, if it's a counsellor profile, you know, say it's a counsellor.

If it's not, then we don't mention it.

If there are particular bits you don't think are clear, I'm happy to review that and change

that.

I don't think it is entirely clear.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:21:00

The proof is we keep having these sort of complaints that are dismissed because of freedom

of expression.

I do think the guidance could be made a little bit more clear.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:21:19

Councillor Dickson, have you joined us? It bothers me I think, and this is just a

Cllr Karen Dickson - 1:21:23

general comment, that people assume that there are issues in parish councils. And I heard

Mel speak earlier about how some councils struggle to get people to volunteer because

there's issues and bad behaviour in parish councils. So the school teacher in me then

wants to say, well, hang on a sec,

how effectively are we looking into it or disciplining

or pulling up behaviour or correcting behaviour?

And it frustrates me that we have these complaints brought

in.

And I think, well, certainly in almost two years

since we've been here, there hasn't been any follow up,

right?

Nothing has gone to level two.

And then, I trust your judgement implicitly.

Please don't think that I'm casting aspersions

on your judgement.

and it's just if we want to improve behaviour,

if we want to say that we want to raise the standard

and expect better outcome,

then we need to not make examples of people,

but we need to act on instances.

We can't say, well, were they being a counsellor

or weren't they being a counsellor?

If they behaved improperly, they are a counsellor.

I'm a bit hard -nosed, I think, when it comes to behaviour.

So I think that's fair enough.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:22:39

We used to have the standards board, which was a good thing.

Unfortunately, the carrot and stick has turned into a twig and a carrot.

And that's the problem. People don't accept punishments necessarily,

or feel that they should accept the judgement of others, which is a problem.

It's something I won't get into the individual cases, but there was one parish torn to shreds by one person.

And it went on for a long, long time. Fortunately, the person has moved away.

But that's, there's just no way, no acceptance of recognising anyone else's view of what

they were doing or any discipline as a result.

Cllr Karen Dickson - 1:23:22

I'm sorry, that makes perfect sense, but somehow if we don't, the well behaved people

will always behave well and those who are rude and disrespectful will generally be rude

and disrespectful. It's like we mentioned earlier about the people who need the discipline

or need the corrective behaviour, don't accept the discipline or the corrective behaviour.

We're not dealing with school children, we're dealing with adults. We need to raise our

standards and our expectations of them. Thank you very much. Kelly.

Thank you. Just to sort of bring back to what we were saying in the presentation earlier

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:23:53

and obviously with this data, how's the impact of the training and mediations being measured

in terms of do we know if it's actually bringing down complaints or making any difference?

I'm sure it will be, but it would be good if we had data on that.

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:24:11

Yes, so the parish councillor question, there has not been complaints submitted from there

since from parish councillors.

There has been one complaint submitted since then from a member of the public, but yes,

compared to the period before that training was held, it has substantially decreased the

of complaints we received, who are still in contact with them and encouraging them to

training them.

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 1:24:37

Could we have that added to the reports so that we can see where the training is working

and not working?

And also, sorry, just one last point.

When mediation is considered, presumably, I should also disclose I'm a professional

mediator outside of here, but presumably when it's about disrespect, harassment, bullying,

mediation doesn't take place with the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victim in the

the same room or is that not being implemented?

We typically don't get involved too much in the mediation, but we know that it's taken

place.

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:25:03

We work with Mel in regards to that.

But yes, in that scenario, it wouldn't be a bullying thing.

It's more of a particular personality clash, for example.

Yes, so if it was a serious allegation, basically it wouldn't go through mediation.

Okay, thank you.

Phil.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:25:20

Chairman, I would just like to make a point.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:25:24

What a fantastic teacher that Karen Dixon was, Councillor Karen Dixon.

and I'd like to make a proposal, maybe you would like to help with some of the mediation

that needs to go on, just a compliment to my colleague to the right.

Well, I have to say, Phil, I can't believe that you were one of her students.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:25:38

It's hard to take anything that Councillor Gorms says seriously.

On that note.

In that case, we'll move on to the work we've got coming before us.

8 Work Programme 26/27

Obviously, we dealt with today, the 30th of July at the top there, but we've got the

work coming through from the 15th of October.

If everyone is happy with those, we can go and give those considerations the next time

we meet.

We've got something to discuss.

Sorry, Chairman.

Obviously, the motion will be on the 15th of October as well.

It's not actually on this work programme, but it will be.

Mr Tom Fowler - 1:26:21

Right.

Okay.

Thank you very much for that.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:26:24

Just coming back to the governance working group, do we want to just limit to five of

the committee or?

Chairman, I thought the comment was made.

There's many members of the committee as want to attend.

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:26:42

I don't mind either way.

I just want to be clear.

Is it those of us who just want to be on it or is it just five people?

All members of this committee will be invited to a meeting of that working group.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:26:54

Whether you choose to attend that is up to yourselves, and provided there's a quorum

of you in order to make that meeting happen, that's what will happen.

Clearly we can't make every single date that everyone could make, potentially, which is

why I think it's part – one of the reasons why it's put out to the whole committee,

but it is a meeting of the whole committee, partly because this is, as has been mentioned,

quite a confusing or difficult subject.

It's better if more people are involved from stage one straight away.

John.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:27:28

As the member for one of the two parishes that's made the request,

Cllr John Chilver - 1:27:34

would I be allowed to participate in the working group?

So as a member of the parish council.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:27:40

Council, elected member, ward member.

Cllr John Chilver - 1:27:46

Yes, you would.

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:27:50

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:27:52

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 1:27:58

I don't know how easy or otherwise it would be to do in public session now, but after

the meeting is closed we can consider that together, if you wish.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 1:28:05

I believe that concludes today's business.

Thank you all very much.

It's lovely to meet you all.

And we'll meet again soon.

Thank you for your time.

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr David Carroll

Conservative

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Cllr John Chilver

Conservative

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Cllr Karen Dickson

Independent

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Mr Tom Fowler

Democratic Services Officer

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Cllr Phil Gomm

Conservative

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Cllr Clive Harriss

Conservative

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Cllr Frank Mahon

Conservative

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Cllr Wendy Matthews

Conservative

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Cllr Maru Mormina

Green Party

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Cllr Martin Tett

Conservative

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Cllr Kelly Thornton

Liberal Democrats

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Interactive webcast player

Standards and General Purposes CommitteeThursday, 30th July 2026 at 2:00pm

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:00:00

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:01:00

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:06

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:01:13

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:15

2 Apologies

4 Declarations of Interest

5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

3 Minutes

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:01:50

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:02:25

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:02:28

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:02:54

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:02:56

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:03:13

5 Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:08:09

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:13:52

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:14:30

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:15:36

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:17:25

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:18:03

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:18:35

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:18:41

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:19:09

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:19:13

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 0:19:28

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:20:22

Cllr Kelly Thornton - 0:21:19

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:21:35

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:21:41

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:21:50

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:22:44

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:24:32

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:25:58

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:27:59

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:28:14

Cllr David Carroll - 0:28:22

Cllr Karen Dickson - 0:28:27

Cllr David Carroll - 0:28:41

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:29:17

Cllr David Carroll - 0:29:44

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:29:49

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:30:01

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:30:11

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:32:06

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:33:24

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:33:50

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:34:14

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:35:35

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:36:27

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:36:33

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:39:19

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:40:37

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:40:44

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:41:04

Cllr John Chilver - 0:41:17

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:41:59

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:43:01

Cllr Sherrilyn Bateman - 0:43:14

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:43:44

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:43:46

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:45:35

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:46:42

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:48:03

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:48:06

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:48:08

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:48:19

Mel Woof BMKALC - 0:48:36

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:49:09

6 Community Governance Requests - Parish Councils

Mr Tom Fowler - 0:50:39

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:52:08

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:53:28

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:53:31

Glenn Watson - Senior Governance Manager - 0:55:10

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:56:57

Standards and General Purposes Committee
Thursday, 30th July 2026 at 2:00pm