The Role of The Parish Council
The Parish Council
At the base of our democracy is the individual, registered voter. Interested volunteers from the list of registered voters (the Electoral Roll) can be elected to form a “Parish Meeting” to represent parishioners’ concerns and decide matters of local importance.
In larger or more active villages, right up to small towns; elected volunteers can stand to be members of a “Parish Council”. A PC has certain responsibilities and limited powers to meet, comment, advise, or act on behalf of the parish.
PC Business.
The PC may
- Comment on planning applications within or affecting its parish area
- Support local and tourism organisations
- Allocate funds, acquire and sell land
- Ensure the maintenance of war memorials, roads, paths, street lights and road signs
- Provide bus shelters,public seating, litter and dog waste bins
- Prosecute and defend any legal proceedings in the interests of its community and take part in a public enquiry
A full list including many items which are not run by the PC in South Clifton such as allotments, sports facilities and cemeteries, can be found here .
South Clifton PC works with local district councillors at the next level of accountability; Newark and Sherwood District Council, one of the district or borough councils of Nottinghamshire. Newark and Sherwood DC (html website link) employs a dedicated staff to deal with matters such as:
- Council tax banding, collection, rebates and distribution
- Local authority sports, entertainment and recreation facilities
- Planning and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)
- Local authority housing
- Rubbish collections, provision of bins, fly tipping and recycling
- Anti-social behaviour and environmental health.
Nottinghamshire County Council Each part of the county has an elected County Councillor, to represent its concerns and promote its interests. Notts CC offers a free smartphone application, the MyNotts App, which allows individual voters to find out what’s on, available services and report incidents or items needing action, such as broken street lights, missing road signs, path signs and gates, or road damage/potholes. Its employed staff deal with an extensive range of services (Link to index of Notts CC services) such as adult care and allocate Council tax to the Police and Fire and Rescue Services.
South Clifton Parish Council consists of up to 7 unpaid volunteers, who can vote on matters at the PC meetings. Elections to the PC are for a period of 4 years and must be held within one month of a general election. If a councillor retires, the PC can appoint replacement, unless there are more than one person seeking election for a vacancy, in which case a formal parish election should be held. Once elected volunteers are referred to as “Councillor” - abbreviated to Cllr.
The Parish Council is led by a Chairman, assisted by a Clerk, currently Cllr Gill Cobham. If the PC is large enough it can employ a remunerated Clerk, who is not normally a voting councillor. Currently Cllr Cobham kindly acts as unpaid Parish Clerk, in addition to normal tasks. A full list of PC councillors is below:
Chairman Dr Ed Swain
Vice Chairman Bindy Dadswell
Clerk Dawn Benton
Cllrs Gill Cobham
Alan Griffiths
Margret Griffiths
John Ford
Funding. A PC is funded by the parish precept; an amount of public funds from the district council’s Council Tax budget. The amount is based on registered voters in the parish. The PC can request to change its precept within certain limits. A PC can own land and receive unconditional donations to boost its income. It should decide a reserve level for planned and contingency expenditure. It must operate its account in credit.
Matters of business.
SCPC meets more frequently than a parish meeting and dates are listed here. (List of dates or html link to location)
The agenda for each meeting is here. (html Link to location of the next PC agenda.)
Minutes of previous meetings are listed here.
Financial Transactions & the Transparency Code. A list of all individual items of PC expenditure has to be declared and can be found in the relevant minutes. Parish organisations can request assistance from the PC, which has ultimate decision. Relevant external projects maybe supported so long as they benefit the parish.
Audit. An annual external audit of PC accounts takes place and last year’s audit results are here
Becoming a Councillor. A Councillor should act at all times in the best interests of the parish and are not supported nor obliged to be a member of a political party. They should be prepared to set an example in their deliberations or decisions and be impartial and objective. At each meeting councillors have to deciare if they should abstain from agenda items because of a clash of interests. If you wish to speak about becoming a parish councillor please contact the Chairman or the Parish Clerk or speak to a councillor listed above.