March 2021 Minutes EOM
Minutes of the Extra Ordinary Parish Council Meeting of North Kelsey Parish Council held in the Village Hall on Tuesday 24th March 2021 at 6.30pm
Those present: Cllr P Bryan ( chair ) , M Williams, D Hunt, S March, H Burrows, D Weir
In attendance: J Waite (Clerk)
1 To receive apologies and reasons for absence Ref 20/389
Cllr L Barker, Cllr R Smith.
2 To receive declarations of interest under the Localism Act 2011 – being any pecuniary or non-pecuniary interest in agenda items not previously recorded on Members’ Register of Interests. Ref 20/390
Cllr M Williams – Disclosable Pecuniary Interest - Grass cutting contract.
3 Chairs Report Ref 20/391
The Chair reminded Councillors that they are bound by the Code of Conduct, and that all discussion should take place in an appropriate and respectful way.
Update on Councillor Training – Cllrs D Weir and S March have now completed the on line training.
Cllrs M Williams, H Burrows and D Hunt - are still to start / complete on line training.
Correspondence from Councillors received by the Chair and items questioned will be covered in the agenda items.
4 Clerk’s report Ref 20/392
The email address to contact the Clerk is clerk.northkelseyparish@gmail.com
A statement from the Clerk was read to Councillors by the Chair – .
Suggestions have been made to reduce conflict and to improve the efficiency of the council and its meetings but there is a refusal to engage with these suggestions, preventing the running of the council. As the Proper Office of the Council I am requesting that this practice stops, and motions are moved forward by a vote to resolve the outcome.
Review of Standing Orders.
The orders will be amended as follows;
Title page – remove reference to NALC. Add date and version of orders.
Remove page 2
Page 21 section 17 part C – amend to May, November and January for financial reporting.
Proposed Cllr Burrows. Seconded Cllr Weir. All in favour.
Review of Financial Regulations.
The regulations will be amended as follows;
Title page – remove reference to NALC. Add date and version of orders.
Page 6 section 3 part 3.2 – amend May to read November.
Page 7 section 4 part 4.4 – amended to November. The RFO will inform Council and Councillors of any changes.
Page 11 section 6 part 6.13 – USB memory sticks are to be purchased for back up storage of documents.
Proposed Cllr Burrows. Seconded Cllr March. All in favour.
Proposal to add Cllr Burrows as another admin on the facebook page.
Proposed Cllr Bryan. Seconded Cllr March . All in favour.
Website update – page now created to add policies. GDPR and news pages will be concentrated on next. Ask LCC about adding a councillor to the admin pages.
5 Financial Matters Ref 20/393.
VAT reclaim – Clerk and Chair have now obtained the correct reference number from HMRC and the reclaim has been sent electronically. The Clerk had previously sent the paper based 126 form and the reference number should have been supplied by HMRC. When contact was made with the correct HMRC department two reference numbers were supplied, suggesting that these had been generated previously but had not reach the Clerk for some reason. Clerk to monitor bank account for payment.
Budget summary for year 20/21 to February was circulated, showing the net and VAT totals are requested at a previous meeting.
The bank mandate needs updating to remove one signature and add 2 others. The form is only available as a fill in PDF which has signatures scanned. It is no longer possible to do a paper copy. The IT equipment supplied by the council to the Clerk does not have this facility or the capacity to install it. This was an action point from the Clerks Appraisal – Clerk suggested a 5 year development plan for the Council looking at future financial spend and updating of equipment. Councillors did not move this action point forward for discussion.
Signatures to stay on account – Clerk, (J Waite ) Cllr Barker, Cllr Smith, Cllr Hunt.
Signatures to be added Cllr Burrows, Cllr Williams.
Proposed Cllr Hunt. Seconded Cllr Bryan. All in favour.
6 Process of obtaining quotes. Ref 20/394.
Clerk to ask LALC for clarification to Standing Order 18 section D part V – as all quotes now received by email it is not possible to bring in sealed envelope to a meeting to be opened in front of another councillor, as the Clerk has already accessed by email. Should all quotes be emailed to a councillor at same time as Clerk? Clerk raised concerns about this, as no one councillor should have access to information that other councillors do not, and there is also the issue of confidentially when councillors have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest. Councillor Burrows stated that by only the Clerk seeing the quotes, the Clerk was open to accusations of bribery.
Councillors can and have attended site meetings with contractors to discuss the work being quoted for.
Proposal to advertise for quotes on the facebook site – check with LALC that this is OK.
Concern raised about the grass cutting contract quotes – councillors felt it should have been done earlier in the year than March. The 20/21 contract was awarded in April 2020 and to run for 12 months. The Clerk was to place an agenda item on the April agenda. The Clerk had spoken to one contractor about a separate issue – for another council – and had asked him if he would be willing to quote for the grass cutting 21/22 contract. The quotes were to be sort for the April meeting, in line with the previous contract finishing. The quote arrived from this contractor on 1st March 2021. The current contract emailed the Clerk on 3rd March asking when the tendering process would be – Clerk replied on the same date asking him to quote based on the same specification as last year. This quote was handed to the Clerk at the meeting on March 9th. This contractor has stated that he wasn’t invited to tender, when in fact he was he was contacted on March 3rd by email. The Clerk, Cllr Bryan and Cllr Hunt all met with the third contractor on 5th March at the Cemetery to discuss changing the specification for the hedge work this contractor had already been booked to do. This contractor was asked at this meeting if he wished to quote for the grass contract 21/22 and he confirmed that he did and would email the quote to the Clerk in time for the council meeting on March 9th. The Clerk brought all three quotes to the meeting. If none of these quotes had been acceptable the contract would have then been further advertised.
If councillors wish to review contracts / memberships / other items for renewal then this can be mentioned at each meeting under the section;
10. To receive general comments from members for consideration on the next agenda.
Councillors can also email the Clerk up to 10 days before an agenda is due to be posted with items to add for discussion.
The Clerk requested that Councillors do this, rather than say after the event that they want reviews to be done at earlier meetings. The action plan should help with this forward planning.
7 Review of Clerks weekly hours. Ref 20/395.
The Clerk was appointed in January 2018 to a 6 hour week with meetings every 6 weeks – a total of 6 per year. At the meeting on January 9th 2018, page 001 item 5 min ref 18/06 it was resolved to move to 12 meetings per year, on the second Tuesday of each month as councillors were looking to complete projects around the village. The Clerks hours were not increased at this time. The work load has steadily increased to the present meeting and the Clerk has been paid for some of this overtime. Councillors have looked at ways of decreasing the work load.
A proposal was made to reduce the number of meetings each year back to 6, held at 6 week intervals.
Proposed Cllr Burrows. Seconded Cllr Williams.
Votes for proposal – 4.
Votes against proposal - 2. Motion carried.
The advertised meetings on April 13th and May 11th will take place, with May 11th being the Annual Parish Council Meeting and from then on the meetings will move to 6 weekly. New meeting dates are to be advertised on the notice board and the website.
8 Internal Audit by Councillors. Ref 20/396.
Proposal for Cllr Burrows to do internal review of council accounts for years 2017/18 , 2018/19 and 2019/20. Councillors to do full audit every quarter going forwards, as per Financial Regulations.
Proposed Cllr Hunt. Seconded Cllr Williams.
Votes for proposal – 4.
Votes against proposal - 1
Abstain – 1. Motion carried.
Clerk left the meeting at 8.30pm.
Mins taken and typed up by Cllr S March.
9. Clerk hours / pay scale review / arrangements for overtime in future. Ref 20/397
Clerk’s Contract of Employment – Cllr Burrows raised that there are differences in Clerk’s current Contract of Employment dated December 2020 compared to the original Contract of Employment dated the January 2018.
Action: Cllr Burrows to compare the current Contract of Employment dated December 2020 against the original Contract of Employment dated the January 2018 and report back to the next Parish Council meeting – 13th of April 2021.
Clerks Pay review and hours – C/F until the review of Clerk’s current Contract of Employment dated December 2020 against the Contract of Employment dated the January 2018 is complete.
Cllr. Burrows raised that clarity is needed with regard to the Clerk’s work and duties undertaken. Cllr. Burrows circulated a paper copy of an example of a Worklog/Timesheet template that could be used by the Clerk to record work and duties undertaken. Agreed for the Clerk to start to record her work and duties on this template.
Chair has received from the Clerk a handwritten recent breakdown of the Clerks work and duties.
No discussion took place on arrangement for any future overtime.
Action: Cllr. Burrows to circulate the electronic copy of Worklog/Timesheet template.
Action: Chair to discuss with the Clerk using the Worklog/Timesheet to record her work and duties and report back to the Chair on monthly basis.
Action: Chair to type up and circulate the current Clerks work and duties log.
10 To receive general comments from members for consideration on the next agenda. Ref 20/398
None raised
Date and Time of next meeting –
April 13th 2021 at the Village Hall North Kelsey, 6.30pm
Meeting closed 9.30pm.