Minutes from 30th April 2024

East Sussex Association of Local Councils Limited

Minutes for a Board Meeting

To be held at Heathfield Community Centre

Tuesday 30^th April 2024 at 10.30am

In attendance:

1. Apologies for absence

Apologies were received from Councillor Sean Macleod.

• Minutes from the previous meeting

The title of the previous minutes were amended to say ‘Minutes’ rather than ‘Agenda,’ and the list of attendees was amended to remove Sean Macleod and to add Cathy Gallagher. The minutes were then accepted as a true and accurate record.

• Finance Update

The Chair reported a surplus of £10,000 not taking into account debtors and creditors. As of 31^st March 2024, £4048 was in the NatWest current account, £12,187 was in the Reserve account and £57,616 had been deposited with CCLA. This totalled £73,851. At the close of business on 29^th April, the total was £118,108 as member councils had been paying their subs for 2024/25. Early indications suggested that training income had increased by £6500. Once the accounts had been finalised, the Finance Committee would meet and plan for the future.

The Chair said NALC’s invoice for the first instalment of fees (80%) would be paid next month. He also suggested that further to a previous agreement to always keep £25k in the NatWest reserve account, it would be better to reduce the amount to £10k, with which Board members agreed.

Councillor David Young suggested that EASLC formally write to Westfield Parish Council to request they re-consider joining NALC, SALC, and RALC.

• NALC update

The Chair said he appeared before the Select Committee on Oflog (Office for Local Government) recently which was meant to be representative of all tiers of local government but pointed out parish and town councils were not included.

The Chair had an interesting meeting with the Rivers and Canals Trust together with the Overseeing Committee on Drainage Boards. He said that 900 parishes in England had a canal connection in one form or another. This led to a meeting with ESCC regarding the Cuckmere river.

Councillor David Young asked if there was update from NALC regarding rates on caravan issues to which the Chair said it was still with the Policy Committee and would likely take some time. 

The CEO spoke of the regular NALC virtual meetings and said an issue regarding NALC’s priorities was raised. The CEO suggested that NALC consult county officers and ask for their county’s priorities; this could then be fed back to NALC and align with their priorities. The CEO subsequently raised the question at the recent ESALC Forum and it narrowed down to: what further evidence does government require for the return of sanctions; compulsory training for councillors; abolition of parish meetings and turn them into parish councils or subsume them into an adjoining parish. Regarding Parish Meetings, he said there were 20 within Sussex, 4 who never met.

It was reported that historically NALC had tried to get the equivalent of a memorandum of understanding between CALCs and NALC but it proved difficult. It was agreed that every CALC was slightly different which also complicated things further. The Chair said that NALC had provisionally agreed that a Conference would take place in March 2025 where CALCs would be invited to discuss their needs.

Councillor John Barnes said the issue of unclassified roads and speed limits was still an issue and he felt that national legislation was required to reduce the speed to 40mph. ESCC did not appear to be interested in Quiet Lanes and it appeared that this could not be tackled at County level. The CEO said Westmeston Parish Council had successfully pushed for a 40mph limit in an unclassified road. He said their application was supported by ESCC and the police. The CEO had a meeting with the Chair of Westmeston Parish Council so would find out more and share further information.  

Councillor Kay Moss said that Crowborough had an unclassified residential road but had not been able to do anything about the speed. The Parish Council was told street lights may be required; however, Councillor Kay Moss pointed out that Newick had a 30mph zone with no street lights, so it must be possible.

If police and County Council did not support it, it would be difficult to make a change but the Chair said he would raise the above with NALC.

Action: Unclassified roads: Raise at EASLC conference and invite Hew Merriman and the Chief Constable.

• Civility and Respect

The Chair said that Wealden District Council were holding a Civility and Respect training session in June, one in person and one online.

The CEO reported that Emma Martin had written to parish councils encouraging them to sign up to the Civility and Respect pledge. In East Sussex, there were 102 parishes, excluding parish meetings, there were approximately 90. Of those, 35 had confirmed they had already signed up. A few others had reported that they would be signing up in 2024 and a handful had said they would not sign up due to training costs amongst other factors. In West Sussex, which had 137 member councils, only 48 confirmed they had signed up to the Civility and Respect pledge.

NALC questioned if training was a factor in parishes not signing up as when you undertake the pledge you agree to undertake a schedule of training. The Chair said that only a couple of councillors from each Council needed to attend training and they could feed back to the rest of council. He also said that members did not need to attend specific civility and respect training. If they attended general training such as new councillor training which covers the Code of Conduct etc. then this would be sufficient.

The Chair said by supporting the pledge, Councils would be helping provide the much needed data required for NALC to succeed in bringing back the standards regime.

• Police update

The CEO spoke about Operation Bridger, which was managed by Inspector Oli Fisher in Sussex. Part of his role was advising on the personal security of elected officials. A video prepared by the Met Police was recently released and shared with all member councils across Sussex. A pattern was emerging and the CEO feared that at the next elections, being a parish councillor may not be very popular. He questioned the role social media had to play.

The CEO reported on the Contact Improvement Group which had been set up to ensure that everybody, no matter how they communicated with the police, received the same satisfactory outcome. The CEO was Chair of CIG and said they would next be meeting on 16^th May. He had requested a visit to the control room to be incorporated so people could see the anatomy of a call. If any Board members were interested in attending then the CEO would add them to the list.

A Board member questioned if relationships with Sussex Police were strong, to which the CEO felt that they were, and he said he could arrange for an officer to be present at a meeting if it was likely that trouble may arise.

Councillor Cathy Gallagher said a councillor from a neighbouring Council had been using social media to share false information to increase her own credibility. The CEO said that false information should be reported to the social media company so they could remove it.

The subject of publishing councillors’ personal addresses was raised and the CEO said that the Wealden monitoring officer had started to recommend that parish councillors no longer put their address on paperwork, simply stating ‘a property in the parish.’ It was noted that on the Register of Interests form, an actual address was required.  When the CEO approached NALC for their take, it was confirmed there was no policy line but they said councils should rely on monitoring officers. However, the solicitor’s Personal view was that safety and security should override the register of interests.

Councillor Kay Moss asked how members of the public would know if there was a conflict of interest if a councillor had their personal address redacted.

• SDNP by-election

The CEO advised that the South Downs National Park by-election had taken place and the count was scheduled to take place on 2^nd May. Of 34 parishes within East Sussex which sit within the National Park boundary, 25 ballot papers had been returned. There were 7 candidates for the 1 seat and it was confirmed that Keith Stevens would be the Returning Officer.

• CEO update

The CEO said County Councillor Chris Dowling was a business mentor and he had approached ESALC to see if his services could be of use to parish councils and their business plans. The Board discussed and decided this was not necessary as the CEO already carried out visioning exercises.

At the last Board meeting, a pilot newsletter was discussed and the CEO confirmed that West Sussex ALC had agreed to trial it on a single edition basis. The Board also agreed to trial a pilot newsletter across East Sussex and a fee of £250 for this one-off edition was confirmed.

The CEO said it was the 80^th Anniversary of the D-Day landings on 6^th June. The East Sussex Partnership and Military Board would be rolling out various events. He said that St Leonard’s and Hastings had a higher proportion of male suicide than any other part of the South East; particularly men between 30-59. In Burgess Hill, the armed forces veterans breakfast club was recently set up and said it was going well. He urged parish councils to consider setting one up if it was felt it may benefit veterans in their area.

• District Associations

Councillor David Young said there had recently been a RALC meeting and the issue of Rother and its reserves was discussed. He also said there had been a very good discussion with Hew Merriman who spoke to clerks and councillors and was very interactive. The other topical issue was public toilets; Rother were trying to offload them to parish councils but if the parish council did not want to take them on, then it is likely they would end up not in use. Councillor Keith Robertson spoke more about Rother’s finances and how there had been concerns about Rother District Council going bust so they had been looking closely at finances. He also said they had reduced social housing numbers as they could not sell it otherwise; they had to protect their budget. They concluded by saying that RALC had really improved relations with Rother and there was certainly more transparency than in the past.

Councillor Keith Robertson said more involvement from the police would be appreciated. He said that an officer would attend RALC meetings at least twice a year but he had not seen the current Inspector in at least a year. He said it would be useful to have a standard level of service that ALC’s might expect to receive from the police.

The CEO said that Sussex Police were going through a restructure and in West Sussex were hoping to grant more power at district level.

The CEO had been approached by two councils about e-scooters being used on pavements. The police policy line in Sussex Police on ceasing e-scooters was essentially that they were too busy to appropriately deal with it. He said the Roads Policing Unit were responsible for e-scooters but they were very stretched. The police said that the law as it stands was enforceable, but in reality, it did not appear to be the case. 

The CEO said that LDALC met on 12^th February for the first time in months. Councillor Christopher Baker was elected as Chairman and the next meeting would be in June in Newhaven at which there would be a representative from ESCC to discuss how they could work more closely with one another. All Lewes parishes have been asked what issues they would like raised so this can be a focus at the next meeting.

The Chair said that WALC had met earlier in the month and the leader of Wealden District Council, James Partridge, was in attendance to provide an update. There was also an update on waste assets and details of a cost of living team which had been set up which offered surgeries. The Head of Waste, Assets and Crematorium, Chris Bone, gave a talk on assets including the crematorium. Finally, he said that Wealden District Council had recently celebrated its 50^th anniversary.

The Chair also reported that he had attended the Sussex Rural Affordable Housing Partnership meeting which was called by Action in rural Sussex to get various bodies to work together and achieve good practice. There would be another meeting in May.

1. Any other matters raised by Board members

Dr Alex MacGillivray spoke about the upcoming Police & Crime Commissioner election and reported on the lack of communication, even online there. Marion Shepherd DL said there used to be a hustings for police election.

Councillor Keith Robertson said a refresh on mandate changes for parishes was needed, following a recent audit he carried out where it took a council over two months to update a bank mandate. If a council was completely stuck, how might ESALC help? The Chair said that NALC’s new website which was due to be published soon would have a page dedicated to banking and it would contain details of who Clerks can talk to for mandate issues.

The Marquess of Abergavenny said the Heathfield Show was typically very well attended and suggested ESALC might consider having a stall there. It was agreed that there was not enough time to attend this year but that it would be worth seriously considering next year. The CEO said ESALC had previously attended the Ardingly Show and said it was successful.

Councillor John Barnes said a large lake, Bewl Water, on the edge of two districts meant that it never got enough attention. He said there had been a large petition as well as an open letter opposing damaging developments had been sent to Southern Water. Many organisations were in support but Natural England said they did not have the time or capacity to assist. The Wildlife Trust were already involved as were other conservation bodies but it was the statutory body who needed to take the issue seriously. The Chair said he would look into it and see if there was anything ESALC could do.

Regarding recent correspondence from ESCC regarding a bus service improvement plan, it was agreed that Sean Macleod, Kay Moss and John Barnes would be interested in attending a meeting to understand the issues and to provide valuable input.

1. Date of next meeting

TBC