A community governance review is announced… sort of…

I suspect that there aren’t that many people who actively seek to be on the e-mail list for local government press releases. But, for a Parish Council Chair, they often serve as the easiest means of finding out what is going to happen to you next. Indeed, it slightly surprised me that more of my colleagues don’t do likewise.

For, whilst they are sometimes irrelevant - I’m not sure why I get Babergh’s press releases, for example - you get the odd one which might be of genuine value to some of our residents, if only they knew. Grant schemes, school transport programmes, new services, news of which seldom reaches the general public unless they catch a story in the local press or the grapevine picks up on it. I can pass it on to our village Facebook group and perhaps enable someone to benefit.

But last week, I was checking the District Council’s website for timings for its upcoming Full Council meeting when I noted the agenda included a proposal to initiate a full Community Governance Review, covering the entire district. The idea is to examine the town and parish councils to see if boundaries need altering or if mergers (or demergers) might be appropriate.

I was slightly surprised. After all, I’m on the Board of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils, the representative body of Town and Parish Councils across the county, so you’d think I’d have heard something. But no, not only had Mid Suffolk District Council not given SALC a heads-up, the briefing paper for councillors made no reference to us at all.

Having checked with our highly capable Chief Executive, and discovered that not only had we not been told, that similar reviews were being initiated in East Suffolk and West Suffolk too and in neither case had we been informed either.

It isn’t good enough, if I’m honest, but I contacted an old friend and proposed member of the committee intended to oversee the process, Penny Otton, to see if something could be done. I was also somewhat unimpressed by some of the drafting, which was of the “cut and paste” variety - the briefing paper suggested that information would be published on the Lichfield District Council website, for example, and started the consultation timeline in January, some two months before the process would be approved by Council - and asked her to raise this.

Penny was as good as her word, the paper was redrafted and she sought, and won, our inclusion in the consultation process.

So, my next job is to attract the attention of the designated Council officer and arrange a briefing for SALC and its member councils. And time is short, the intention is to wrap up the review by the end of the year, in time for elections on new boundaries (as need be) next May.