To send this guy his £3.41

[Anon1993]

So... I sit on the parish council.

We’ve just had a vote on the council tax; the finance officer told us that a small (£3.41 per year) increase was the minimum level not to cut anything.

I voted for this as I didn’t believe that this 28p per month was worth possibly losing staff. After the meeting; an elderly gentleman came up to me; placed his hand on my shoulder and called me “fucking idiot, disgrace”

Would it be knobbish of me to send him a short letter explaining that I believe this increase was important to maintain services in the town; but as he was obviously so steadfast in his opposition; I have sent him his £3.41.

I actually know this would be twatish of me; I just wondere when I became acceptable to speak to people like this!

Did you canvas your ward to see if they agreed with an increase before voting for it?

I find most people that work for the council to be incompetent imbeciles. It's like a talking to a brick wall, trying to get any sense or progress re: your issue from them.

Our bunch of jesters have today announced that they are scrapping bus services, are increasing CT, and are going to spend £3mill on refurbing their current or purchasing new offices.

[Hmm]

I honestly think there are too many layers of government in this country and that most parish councillors are nothing but budybodies who authorise spending on crap we don't want or need, sorry

Do you actually live somewhere with a parish council? If we didn’t have a parish council our graveyard wouldn’t be maintained, our grass verges and playing fields wouldn’t be cut, footpaths would remain unsurfaced etc. They’re not spending on frivolous things, just maintainence of local amenities!

The parish is indeed several thousand households. Just to clarify :)

And yes, to back up pp; we spend money on the cemetery, grass cutting, maintaining parks and the like.

The overwhelming feeling I get from locals is that they don’t want services cut. Of 28p per month achieves that then I will happily defend that!

Out here in Ruralshire it's fairly easy for a parish to cover about 100 square miles and still only have about 1000 people actually living in it, including the children. I do know our parish councillors get nothing. Unlike the county councillors. They can easily retire off their allowances. And don't get me started about the moment I discovered they get free parking in all county car parks, for two different cars, at any time. So County Councillor Spouse can take Other Car shopping whenever he/she likes, dump it in the £9 an hour car park in centre of county town, and not pay and not worry.

Yes I’ve read the OP, and you are naive to think there aren’t cuts going to be made.

I was at the same parish meeting last week, and councillors were proposing a 3.95% increase insisting it was to maintain existing levels, plus the 1% Adult Social Care Precept...

however then pledged to find £22.4 million of savings in adult social care by 2022, largely by integrating its services with the local NHS... you know the NHS whose struggling to meet critical services currently.

When asked if this is the case then why were library staff already informed of slashed library opening hours/days

Or that parking charge hikes for disabled drivers, in which posters notifications were already being placed in car parks.

Or that residents are to be charged to replace their damaged or stolen wheelie bins.

Apparently they needed to get back to me, while still trying to maintain the increase was to keep existing levels

I don’t believe that any council will not be making cuts this year or that even if a small increase is under the illusion it’s to keep existing levels.

Does not mean in any shape or form you should be abused however in the manner you were.

councils are facing “unprecedented” financial hardship which has forced civic centre bosses to make “very difficult decisions”.

Elizer Bus services are run by either the County in a 3 tier area (county, borough and parish)or by the LA in a 2 tier / unitary area.. Not by the Parish

Parish councils deliver sections of statutory legislation powers without remuneration - only the clerk is a paid role in most cases. Yet the volunteers are expected to enact sections of the 2011 Localism Bill relating to Neighbourhood planning, Housing needs surveys to feed into the strategic housing planning, community right to build, community right to acquire, community referenda and are statutory consultees on a wide range of services that are paid for in non rural areas, health and social care services that are not available to our areas, policing and fire services that are 35 miles away. education services that are funded £608 per year per pupil less than the kids in the neighbouring towns. Library services cut, bus services cut on a per person basis. Areas where if you have to sign on you pay more in taxi than your claim.

£3.41 is cheap. What is cheeky is that we pay into all of the above for areas that are non parished within our LA areas. We pay twice & that is cheeky.

Rural areas are chronically underfunded.

They’re not spending on frivolous things, just maintenance of local amenities!

Oh I do beg to differ!
I live in a big village and joined our parish council to see what actually went on, (and to stop them trying to fell a row of beautiful oaks).
They frequently made sizable donations to anything from Guide dogs for the blind and Alzheimer's association to random small local charities that I personally had never heard of but many of the councillor's relatives had close ties to.
Then there were the contracts to Tree surgeons/landscape gardeners etc.....usually awarded to the most expensive quote who was often a councillors relative.
60th/70th/80th etc birthday gifts for ex parish councillors, to thank them for all they had done for us, this usually took the form of a huge bunch of flowers from the local florist (Parish councillor's wife).
Even the children's art competitions were won by a councillor's grandchild.

IMO it was a very enlightening experience and something which led me to passionately believe that parish councils should be scrapped.

Another parish councillor here and confirm that it is purely voluntary and we don't claim expenses. Our precept is going up significantly this year. For example The money we get from the council for grass cutting doesn't cover the actual costs plus our precept has been very low in recent years. It's hard to action the things that the parish want, without the funds to do it.

Serin,. That may have been your experience, but we aren't all like that....

You should have initially sidntuebincrease would be £9 and then argued it down to £3.41..

Miserable goat would have likely thanked you then.

Parish precept does not pay for bin collection, Wheely bin replacement, - this is a borough duty and paid from your Borough council tax bill

Parish precept does not pay for bus services - this is from you LA or county council tax bill.

Parish precept pays for you local ward services - grass cutting, park services, local gritting services, community hub buildings, local charity services, community bus, local services for elderly loneliness services, toddler groups. Ours pays for one of our residents to attend university and maintenance of our local car park so visitors can use a clean toilet. Trading licences, signage for the art trail, local tourism. We run a local credit union and a community garden / orchard to combat rural poverty.

Peoples lack of understanding of what a parish council is on this thread is shocking. Bitching about new buildings and fat cats. The only fat cat round here is one of our councillors moggy and new buildings they have replaced the few bricks that needed replacing in the bus stop.

They are all volunteers it a layer of government which is actually useful and if you don't like your counsellors it is laughably easy to become one. My neighbour hated one of our so much he phoned up to stand in the next election and the next day was told he was elected as no one else had stood and they are still one down.

What a horrid man. No don't send him a penny let him pay it himself as it obviously winds him up so much.

Smile at him as you step on his foot next time you walk past him.

£3.41 is the amount needed to spell “There’s more to life than this” in 1p pieces. I suggest glueing that in pennies to the front of your building and boasting to him about the amazing new artwork that the Parish Council has just commissioned.

I also wonder if his comment was directed at the finance officer rather than you.

Report him to who ever is in-charge and have him banned from attending.

Amazed that many don’t know the difference between parish and county level too, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I work for a parish council and we are always getting complaints directed to us about things that the county council is responsible for.

I wish more people paid an interest in parish council politics - it’s where you can influence the most change.

As a member of the parish council I would hope you would reach out to him and see you you can understand why he is feeling this way, has he been let down or lied to in the past by others in authority? I’m not condoning his behaviour but attempting to shame him isn’t great leadership either. Maybe there’s more to the story if you listen

PaquitaVariation
Yes thank you I do live somewhere with a parish council.
They don't cut the graveyard, the church pcc does that

They don't pave the pavements, the borough and county do that.

They don't do the playing field, that was donated and a separate self funding committee look after it, the parish council donate 50 pounds a year to it.

The parish hall is run by a committee and was funded by the lottery it did have some money donated by the parish council but it also gets money from the borough council

They have spent money on new signs that no one can read because they are too small so had to order new ones

It spent money on another sign carved from granite that says welcome. It costs thousands, looks like a gravestone and isn't even at the edge of the village.

They are quite happy to donate money to the rspca and Alzheimer's society but not to local groups like mum's and toddlers or the old men's club because they should be self funding

The reason I know this is because I read the minutes of their minutes.

All of the things the parish council do could be done at borough level, i am well aware they aren't paid but we do not need 5 levels of government.

*minutes of their meetings

I also think you should get him banned from future meetings. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with being rude just because of his age. I won’t say seniority as this is what he was playing on.