WTC: A ‘Proper’ Mess

Hear that? It’s the sound of pencils being sharpened. Sharpened by the people who like to keep an eye on the Council, the people who hold them to account, to expose their stupid mistakes and frightening ignorance, or disregard, of the law.

They are getting ready with their notebooks and pencils to jot down yet another objection about the poor way our Town Council is being run.

A Council needs three officers to run properly; the Clerk , who’s supposed to know about the rules and regulations and guide Councillors on how to do things, the Proper Officer, who deals with all the official paperwork, setting up agendas and summoning Councillors to meetings etc, and the Responsible Financial Officer who, as the name suggests, deals with the financial side of things. Normally, in a small Council like Whitby, one person can do all 3 of those jobs, assisted by a Deputy who takes over when they’re away.

When the last Deputy Clerk retired, it was decided to save money and replace her with an Assistant Clerk. Doing that meant they would need to employ a locum if the Clerk was away. Unfortunately, after nearly 10 months, they still seem to have omitted to put in a procedure to be followed should that eventuality happen.

And now the Clerk is away and chaos reigns.

The Assistant Clerk is not a Proper Officer and any attempt to pretend he is, is just grist to the mill of the watchers. Just read the Council’s Standing Order No.15. It says the Proper Officer must be nominated by the Council. Whitby Town Councils’ Assistant Clerk, a.k.a. North Yorks Councillor Philip Trumper, was not nominated by the Council. In fact, the Council have never been shown his Terms & Conditions of employment (it’s not in the Minutes and it’s not on the website) and have no real idea what he is supposed to be doing. Even if he was nominated as a Proper Officer, as a sitting North Yorks Councillor, there are many things he cannot do because of a conflict of interest. How he got the position he now holds has raised many eyebrows and is possibly a story for another day.

Without a Proper Officer, the Council cannot function. Without a Proper Officer, motions cannot be received and Councillors cannot be summoned for an ordinary meeting of the Council, and if you can’t hold a meeting, how can you choose a new Proper Officer?

Luckily, the law provides an answer. Actually two answers. One is to ‘borrow’ a Proper Officer from another Council, yes, really, they can. The other is to appoint a Councillor to do the job. In the absence of a Proper Officer the Mayor has the authority to summon all Councillors to an Extraordinary Meeting and they can use that to choose a stand-in.

The problem then is who to choose?

The Mayor, Cllr Sandra Turner? She’s certainly capable but probably best to keep the two jobs separate, for appearances’ sake. The same goes for the Vice-Mayor, Cllr Jonathan Harston. Cllrs. Mclaren and Wood? Newbies, an unknown quantity and too inexperienced. The same probably goes for Cllrs. Harle and Blackwell. Cllr “I don’t know what that means” Wild or Cllr. Bob ‘the nob’ Dalrymple? They’re both in the spotlight for involvement in ‘questionable?’ expenditure so best keep their heads down. Cllr Bolton then? Possibly, if he turns up; he does seem to miss more meetings than he attends. Cllr “My way or no way” Brown, Cllr “I’ll represent the people of Whitby (provided they agree with me first)” Mulheran, or Cllr “We’ve always done it this way” Coughlan? Hmm… Really? So, how about Cllr. Layman? Her habit of doing her homework and asking awkward questions is way too progressive for those mentioned so far; they’d never vote for her. That leaves the Cllrs Smith A. and S., Cllr Abbot and Cllr Riddolls. All level-headed, likeable and perfectly capable of doing the job the way it should be done.

So, come on Madam Mayor; can you please get this show back on the road?

Yours, etc

Mel