A Few Thoughts on Manorbier Community Council (2)

In my last post on this subject I missed out one of the key players in the saga of Manorbier Community Council, the Clerk. When I say key player I really mean key, for without a professional and competent Clerk a Council can find its self in a real mess (Does that sound familiar to you?). How does the Clerk measure up to the standards one would expect from someone in such a responsible post? From the few occasions I have seen her in actions it quickly became obvious that she has difficulty coping with the taking of accurate minutes - she often calls for a halt while she gets a point written down and this difficulty in recording accurate minutes is reflected in the length of time the Council spends correcting the errors in the minutes she produces when they vote to approve the minutes at subsequent meetings. The second role the Clerk is required to play is financial. I don't have any personal knowledge about her competence in this area so will leave others to comment. The third main role of the Clerk is as legal adviser to the Council. I have witnessed several occasions in Council meetings when she has been ask by the Chairman or Councillors to clarify a point of order or legislation and each time the answer has been "I don't know", so she is obviously not familiar with standing orders or the legislation that governs the conduct of councils, although on one of these occasions she did eventually manage to find the section in standing orders that applied. One must ask the question - would a competent Clerk with a full understanding of the legislation have allowed the Council to get into such a mess over the awarding of the contract for the analysis of the Community Appraisal questionnaires that has led to the Council being sued by ICT? This is a question that the Council needs to answer with some urgency.