Time to bask in the glow of achievement... for now, at least...

I have been gloriously re-appointed as Suffolk's member of the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), representing our county on the national stage in the town and parish council sector, and I ought to thank my fellow colleagues on the Board of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils for giving me the chance for what may be one last go-around in the role.

I do have another set of roles to decide upon, which offers some interesting questions. NALC elects its officers and committees for a two-year term, something that I will not be able to complete, as my eligibility comes to an end in May 2027 unless something extraordinary happens - a new Ipswich Town Council may have elections then, but I'd have to run (and win) in a town where Liberal Democrats are not often elected.

It would be foolish of me to count upon such happenstance...

On the other hand, I appear to have the respect of my colleagues on the National Assembly (which never ceases to surprise me), and I think that I add value as the current Chair of the Smaller Councils Committee and Co-Chair of the Micro Councils Network (we may be small, but we're often perfectly formed...).

I have a fortnight to make up my mind.

As encouragement perhaps, I find myself in the rather unusual role of panel member for a discussion of Local Government Reform at the Liberal Democrat East of England Regional Conference in Colchester on 15 November. Unusual, mostly because I really wouldn't consider myself to be an expert. Luckily, I'll be in the company of Chelmsford City Council Leader, Stephen Robinson, and NALC's Head of Policy and Communications, Justin Griggs, who both know more than I do and can look and sound intelligent whilst I try not to panic.

As I write this, it dawns on me that there isn't a woman on the panel - note to self to have a word with the Regional Conference Chair on this point.

I also ought to think about what I want to say, and an opportunity to do that is offering itself in just over a fortnight.

In the meantime, there's stuff to do, and I really ought to get on...

75 Years of local empowerment: Suffolk Association of Local Councils celebrates milestone with film premiere and vision for the future

I don't normally print press releases here, but as I'm a member of the SALC Board, perhaps you might forgive me on this occasion...

The Suffolk Association of Local Councils (SALC) has marked its 75th anniversary with a celebration and the launch of a new film showcasing the vital role of town and parish councils and parish meetings across the county.

Formed in 1950, SALC has grown into the trusted voice and support hub for over 400 local councils and parish meetings in Suffolk—the grassroots tier of the public sector. To commemorate this milestone, more than 100 attendees gathered in Bury St Edmunds for SALC’s Annual General Meeting, which was simultaneously live-streamed to audiences across the county.

 

A highlight of the event was the premiere of a new film capturing the voices and stories of councillors and clerks, shining a light on the people powering local democracy.

 

Sally Longmate, CEO of SALC, said:

This layer of government is closest to the taxpayer—hyper-local and deeply connected to community needs. It’s powered by individuals who step up to make a difference, supported by skilled clerks and officers. Our anniversary is a chance to celebrate their work and explain the impact they have. The film brings that story to life.

The event featured keynote speeches from Christine Luxton, CEO of Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and Baroness Ros Scott of Needham Market, President of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC). Both speakers underscored the power of community and the importance of collaboration.

 

Earlier this year, SALC was named County Association of the Year by NALC for its pioneering work with Suffolk County Council on guidance for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

 

Andrew Lewis, Chair of the SALC Board, added:

We’re incredibly proud of the SALC team. The mission set in the 1950s—to enable councils to be the best they can be—remains just as relevant today.

Looking ahead, SALC is actively engaged in local government reforms, climate action, digital transformation and the evolving role of AI in the sector. The Annual Report presented at the AGM reflects the last 12 months and outlines priorities for the future on behalf of town and parish councils and parish meetings across Suffolk.

 

Sally Longmate concluded:

Amid all the change, our core promise remains: to be there for our members. Whether it’s a quick call or an urgent email, that hands-on support is what our members value most—and that will never change.

SALC Mid Suffolk meets - some thoughts from your host...

One of my less onerous responsibilities is being Chair of the Mid Suffolk South branch of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils. Let's rephrase that. The chairing is easy, although the rest of the role is quite responsible, intellectually challenging and engages my intellect in a way that I might not have expected at the outset.

My primary function as Chair is to manage/lead two out of the four branch forums which take place each year - the Chair of the Mid Suffolk North branch, Julie Bell, deals with the others - and tonight was my turn.

We had a guest speaker from Suffolk County Council, Matthew Ling, who gave us a quick whirl through the details of the new Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund, which is intended to establish on-street vehicle charging points, something badly needed in urban streets where off-street parking doesn't exist, and in villages, where it might not be easy to install personal charging points. There's quite a lot of money available (approximately £7 million) but, if you're going to motivate people to switch from petrol and diesel to electric, making it easier to charge up the vehicle is going to be key.

As a non-driver, I hadn't realised the scale of the price differential between charging at home, using an overnight tariff, compared to the cost of charging elsewhere, and with the proposed new charging points priced somewhere between fast charger points at supermarkets or service stations and the domestic cost, it will hopefully make the switch to electric a little more inviting.

There followed an enlightening discussion, with a series of really good questions emerging from those in attendance, and an offer from our colleague in Coddenham to find out more about what they're doing there. It's a sign of the times that Parish Councils are getting involved in such projects, but good news for rural residents.

We had a brief discussion about community engagement, and there are some emerging themes. There's a sense that we don't always use our websites as effectively as we might, and with new housing being built in so many villages, engaging with the new residents, who might not know much about what we do, active outreach is key. There is, on the positive side, increasing use of social media, although it takes time to build up followers and establish an exchange between residents and council.

Not unexpectedly, highways issues, including potholes and flooding, were raised during our information exchange. It's clear that whilst there is a lot of work that needs doing, and very little in the way of funding to do it, bringing communities together to focus on shared issues is a potential way forward and makes our voices louder. I'm not an optimist, but perhaps if we could focus on some of the key routes, we might at least mitigate the worst problems.

I flagged up the increasing pressure to move towards having gov.uk websites and e-mail addresses for town and parish councils - we can expect to see comments in our internal audit reports this year - noting that there is funding available to support the transition. I also pre-announced the launch of a new NALC network focussing on micro-parishes, something I'm ever so slightly proud of given that I've lobbied hard for it.

Our Chief Executive, Sally Longmate, gave us a brief whirl through what SALC itself is up to, and I was able to bring the meeting to a close almost on the dot of the predicted finish time, which was nice.

Our next meeting is on 4 June, and it'll be Julie's turn to chair, so I can relax just a little...

Ros in the Lords: Levelling Up Bill (Second Reading)

As has been noted by many, this Bill has been so gutted that the Conservatives are being told not to refer to "levelling up" any more. What that's going to do for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is anyone's guess. However, it does offer an opportunity to make some gains for the Town and Parish Council sector, ably represented in the Lords by the Honorary President of the National Association of Local Councils, one (checks notes) Baroness Scott of Needham Market...

My Lords, I wish to focus my remarks on what I regard as the crucial role played by parish and town councils throughout England—one which, I suggest, is essential if the aspirations of the White Paper and this Bill are to be met. I declare my interest as president of the National Association of Local Councils, which supports England’s 10,000 local councils, covering everything from my own tiny parish and its precept of a few thousand pounds to some of our largest towns with budgets of many millions.

Local councils represent an existing, sustainable and accountable model of community leadership and service delivery. Crucially, they help to create that spirit of place which is so essential in building well-being and a strong civic society. They provide parks and open spaces, facilitate street markets, support high streets and organise community events. Part of their strength is that they are close to the people, but they are also part of the important fabric of the local area, alongside community groups, faith groups and voluntary organisations. Working alongside those partners, they are increasingly innovating in areas such as local climate change action, tackling loneliness and dealing with the cost-of-living crisis.

It is in the area of housing—neighbourhood plans led by local councils, with the full involvement of residents—that local councils have proved themselves more than capable of adding to the stock, rather than diminishing it. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Stunell for introducing this. There were people who said, “Well, they’ll all just say no to everything”, but they do not. When local people have buy-in, we end up with more housing rather than less. In the last decade, 3,000 neighbourhood plans have been made; 1,300 referenda came about as part of that, and 88% of people voted yes. However, neighbourhood plans are not available in unparished areas, and it is fair to say that the attitude of the principal authorities is not always supportive. This Bill could contain measures to help deal with some of that, but it also contains some measures—we will return to this in Committee—which could adversely impact on the way neighbourhood plans are currently running.

True devolution is not just about passing a bit of power down one level. The framework set out in the Bill says nothing about onward devolution; therefore, there is very little in it about devolution to local and community councils. The White Paper contained a commitment to carry out a review of neighbourhood governance. It is a shame that we have not yet had that, because the measures needed could have been part of this Bill. Can the Minister say when this review might take place? I ask her, please, not to say, “in due course”, because I have been told that about four times in Written Questions. The UK Social Fabric Index shows that areas with full coverage of local councils score higher in measures of community strength than those without.

There are significant and sometimes ridiculous limitations on the financial powers of local councils, which are excluded from a whole raft of government funding streams. The result is either that a local area does not bid at all, or that it has to set up a whole new organisation and paraphernalia in order to bid and then run it. Reform is needed on this and in other areas, including extending the power of general competence, rights over community assets, clarity on funding for church halls, and parity with the rest of local government in order to be able to pay a carer’s allowance.

The sector made good use of remote meetings, which were forced on all of us during the pandemic. There is lots of evidence to show how engagement—both people joining the council and people joining in with council meetings—increased during that time, so we would like to see that brought back.

The Bill provides a really good opportunity for local councils to build on what is already an impressive record and to play their part in rebuilding and regenerating the social, as well as the economic, fabric of their areas. They do so with very little support and training. They do the best they can with what they have, but it would be good to see local councils have parity with principal councils when it comes to government funding. I know that the Minister has a good track record of working with the town and parish council sector, so I hope she will use the passage of the Bill to make some improvements and enable it to motor.

Creeting St Peter: it's time to bring the professionals in...

Last November, our long-serving Clerk resigned somewhat unexpectedly. Naturally, as Chair, I sought to find a replacement but, in the absence of anyone else, I ended up acting as Clerk, Responsible Finance Officer and Chair simultaneously. It wasn't sustainable in the long-term, and I fully understood that but, if there wasn't anyone else...

Luckily, our affairs are quite simple, I'm enthusiastic about transparency and, of course, I'm a professional bureaucrat. That still doesn't mean that the option of such power in the hands of one person is a good idea.

But, as winter turned to spring and then summer, there was no sign of an applicant to fill our vacancy. And then, in the course of a conversation that I was only part of because I'm married to the person they really wanted to talk to (and I was invited), another option was uncovered - to appoint someone to act as Clerk, and someone else to be Responsible Finance Officer.

To cut a long story short, they've started work, effective from 1 September and I've been answering questions, supplied information and documents and updating our website so that they can hit the ground running. It is, I confess, a weight off of my mind, especially as, despite my sworn intention to transfer power to someone else, it didn't work - I'm back as Acting Chair after less than three months with an understanding that I will be re-elected as Chair formally on 19 September. It would be fair to say that my remaining colleagues weren't terribly keen on taking the reins of "power".

It is also reassuring that my new professional team are highly experienced, extremely knowledgeable and competent. I do fret about breaking rules, especially given that we are, for all my light-hearted commentary, a tier of local government with a slew of legal responsibilities. And the conflict of interest that arises from holding a multitude of roles made me extremely uncomfortable - it's not necessarily a fear of wrongdoing as much as the risk of perception of possible wrongdoing from residents.

In truth, there isn't enough money in the kitty for me to disappear with, but that isn't really the point - those responsible for public funds must demonstrate the right attitude towards accountability and transparency as far as is possible, and certainly as far as the law requires.

But I'm also an officer of the County Association of Local Councils, and therefore have a responsibility to set a good example, even if that's more an aspiration than something actually expressed by any of my fellow Parish Council Chairs.

In the meantime, I've developed a far better understanding of what goes on "under the bonnet" of local government, especially the hyper-local operation that is a micro-Parish. As a Chair, the temptation is to leave all of that "organisational stuff" to your Clerk. After all, they're trained, and you aren't. But, and I think this is important, the Chair, and preferably other councillors, should have a sense of what is happening in their name, as they are ultimately responsible to the electorate.

So, despite the stress of the past nine months, I think that I have gained something useful from the experience, something I can pass on to other Parish Council Chairs undergoing similar difficulties.

Let's just hope that I don't have to do it again any time soon...

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.

Another promotion for the slightly hesitant organisational mountaineer…

I am, I freely admit, not a fan of the “strong leader” school of local government. As a liberal, I believe in sharing power, in encouraging others to act for themselves as far as possible rather than create dependency. And, as a lifelong bureaucrat, I don’t really see myself as a leader anyway. And, for that reason, I’ve tended to yield to others who want power more than I do.

There are, perhaps, opportunities that I have missed through reticence but, on the whole, I know my strengths and cleave to them like a hermit crab does to its shell, occasionally moving on to a different home when my time is up or I sense a loss of enthusiasm.

It’s been slightly different in the Parish and Town Council sector though. Whilst I didn’t seek to be Chair of Creeting St Peter Parish Council - it was rather thrust upon me by my colleagues - I’ve rather got into the idea of leading a team of equals. I’m hardly an enforcer, bending my colleagues to my will, instead I seek to engage with them to enable them to steer those specific elements that attracted them to be a part of Council in the first place.

As everyone seemed happy enough, I rather allowed the situation to drift along, and I like to think that we’re pretty effective, all things considered.

My innate sense of curiosity led me into the wonderful world of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils (SALC), a means of bringing together Parish and Town councillors from across, in my case, Mid Suffolk South, to discuss shared concerns and solutions. And, whilst it was occasionally interesting and often useful, my engagement was limited to turning up.

Attendances are not huge, however, and I somewhat unexpectedly found myself as the only person in the room even willing to countenance the idea of being Vice Chair of the Branch. Odd, really, because Vice Chair is usually a pretty responsibility-free job - you’re at best a spare in case of emergency. But it did grant me a seat on the SALC Board, which I hadn’t known at the time. That in turn led to becoming Suffolk’s representative on the National Assembly of the English representative body, the National Association of Local Councils.

And then, the “emergency” happened, as the Mid Suffolk South Chair resigned - I know not why. So, when the Branch met to elect a new Chair, there were only three eligible people to fill the vacancy. And the other two didn’t want it. That makes me the Branch Chair, I guess…

Just in time for Mid Suffolk District Council to make an announcement…

Handforth Parish Council - a reminder that technology is not without its perils

https://youtu.be/lgGmYeAm0jk

It's not common for the deliberations of a Parish Council to go viral - in truth they're generally not that interesting. However, the unfortunate events during a Zoom meeting of Handforth Parish Council's Planning and Environment Committee have led to the video being watched more than a million times. Given that the population of Handforth was just over 6,000 in 2011, that's rather impressive.

Unfortunately for the Parish councillors concerned, their struggles with technology and, in some cases, basic courtesy, have made it look like a bit of a shambles (I paraphrase in order to protect the innocent). In the midst of the mayhem, the acting Clerk, Jackie Weaver, attempts to create some structure, whilst councillors walk away from their cameras, attempt to speak whilst muted, and talk over each other.

From an outsider's perspective, it does look as though the Parish Council requires the mediation skills of a senior United Nations diplomat, although once Jackie (who is the Chief Officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils) had started excluding those behaving badly, the meeting did seem to be rather more cordial.

But, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded the meeting, it is a reminder to those of us in a similar position that, when you're in a virtual meeting, especially one where there are opposing factions, you need to be on top of your game or, at the very least, paying attention to the picture of you that everyone else is seeing.

That can be a challenge, especially in areas where broadband speeds are less than optimal, and where you have councillors who are unfamiliar, or uncomfortable, with technology. And sometimes, people behave as though there is nobody watching, which can produce some rather bizarre moments, as Handforth councillors demonstrate vividly.

The role of the Chair is criticial. Not only do you have to steer the meeting in order to complete the business, but you need to watch the screen to ensure that people can contribute. And, for most of us, that's a relatively new challenge, one that most of us aren't trained for, and it's a real test of your skills as a Chair.

I'm very fortunate in that, having served on far more committees than is really healthy over the years, I have a reasonable sense of what does and does not work. My colleagues have re-elected me twice, so I'm hoping that that represents an endorsement. But I wouldn't call it easy, especially if it's what one might describe as an "open mic session", where it's necessary or useful to open the discussion beyond just the councillors.

For those with less committee experience, there is training available through your County Association of Local Councils, and I would strongly recommend it, although whether or not the training material is designed to cope with virtual meetings is a question I can't personally answer. The basic skills don't change, however.

The basic courtesies don't change either. Allowing people to finish before you speak, keeping your interventions brief and to the point, judicious use of humour and encouragement and staying muted unless you want to intervene, help the Chair and the Clerk in their roles.

I hope that Handforth Parish Council finds a resolution to the problems it clearly has, but when Parish Councils go sour, it can be a hard road back...

Who is this mystery Parish Councillor?...

The Chief Executive of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils, Sally Longmate, is on a mission to improve the way the organisation works, improving accountability, engagement and our relationships with other parts of the architecture of local government and the voluntary sector across the county.

As part of that, it was suggested that the Board might like to contribute a photograph and a paragraph or so about ourselves for the website, so that our membership might get to know us better. I’m keen on that as a concept, although less keen on the idea of having a photograph of me appear anywhere - I don’t tend to photograph well, especially if I know that I’m being photographed.

Luckily, the photograph is, for the time being, solved, thanks to the 2018 Harwich Shanty Festival and Ros’s Twitter feed. Yes, there is a pirate in shot, but I look relaxed and happy, and not as much like a walrus as is often the case.

As for the biography, the brief reads;

A brief paragraph about yourself, how long you have been a councillor, your position on the council, why you joined the board inc. your specific interests and maybe experience so far to help encourage others to consider this in the future.

So, here’s a perhaps not entirely serious first draft...

Mark Valladares is the current Chair of Creeting St Peter Parish Council, in Mid Suffolk South’s Gipping Valley, having been brought out of retirement by my now fellow councillors for reasons best described by the phrase “process matters”. I joined the SALC Board last year because it seemed that nobody else in Mid Suffolk South wanted to do it, possibly the story of my life in politics and local government. 

As you might guess, as my professional life revolves around stress-testing the accounts and records of small and medium sized enterprises for a major government department, my particular interests are governance and finance. As a somewhat improbable member of the BAME community, I take diversity issues seriously, based on the theory that organisations are best equipped by considering the widest range of perspectives in their decision making.

That does at least give me something to hone over the coming week...

A slightly stunned parish councillor makes it to the big league?

Two weeks ago, I was merely the Chair of a small, albeit perfectly formed, Parish Council of a small village in a backwater of mid-Suffolk. I had, in all honesty, only become Chair due to a friendly ambush by my fellow councillors, who had decided that I might make a half decent job of the role. They have subsequently re-appointed me twice, which might suggest that I'm doing a halfway decent job of it, although it might equally be that they don't fancy the job much.

Two weeks ago, I "turned up" at a virtual meeting of the Mid Suffolk South branch of the County Association of Local Councils, only to find that there was a hitherto unexpected vacancy for its Vice Chair. And, as nobody else wanted the job, I was elected without competition. So far, so good.

That position also gave me a place on the Board of the County Association and, in that capacity, I joined a Zoom meeting this morning for our Autumn meeting. All very nice, all very friendly, and no great surprises. That was, right up until the point where the elections took place...

Our Chair was re-elected without challenge, but a new Vice-Chair was needed. There was a little shuffling until a volunteer was found, which was good. We reappointed our representative to the East Suffolk Council Collaborative Communities Board (I'll admit that I don't know what that does, but as I don't live in East Suffolk, that isn't critical, I suspect) and then came to the last election, that of our representative on the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils, the English umbrella body for the third tier of local government and our equivalent of the Local Government Association.

There didn't seem to be anyone who wanted the job and, as a rookie Board member, I thought it wise to ask what it did. An explanation was given, which seemed harmless enough, but there still wasn't any great rush to take on the role. I was then asked if my question implied some interest and, perhaps foolhardily, suggested that, if nobody else came forward, I'd do it. Nobody did. And so, I got the job.

Each County Association has one member of the National Assembly, so it's not exactly a huge body, but I appear to now have a national platform. And yes, my job is to represent the interests of my county and its town and parish councils, but as a crash course in how the third tier of local government works, it's likely to be pretty intense.

Luckily, I have a strong support network, expert guidance at my disposal, a highly efficient Chief Executive to keep me on the straight and narrow and a predecessor happy to share his insights and experiences. My first meeting is in early December, so if I thought that I had a lot of reading to do a fortnight ago, I've got a lot more on my hands now...

An evening at the Suffolk Association of Local Councils Area Meeting

To Claydon this evening, for the quarterly meeting of the Mid Suffolk South Area of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils, the gathering of Town and Parish Councillors from the borders of Ipswich to a line south of the railway line to Bury St Edmunds.

I’ve been attending these for a while, in my former capacity as Creeting St Peter’s “Foreign Minister” (if it’s outside the Parish, Mark’s happy to go). It’s a useful opportunity to find out what’s happening across the District, and to get a heads-up on emerging issues. There is usually much talk about planning, highways and infrastructure, and whilst we don’t have much of those dots of things, we are impacted by decisions affecting our neighbours.

You also get to learn a bit about local representation and the responsibilities of a councillor, which can prove most useful.

I was slightly late due to a delayed bus, and the meeting was already underway, but there were some familiar faces, and a free seat, so I made myself comfortable and eased myself into the flow of discussion.

SALC has a new(ish) Chief Executive, who is immersing herself into the role and is developing a sense of what needs doing and how it might get done - there will be technology involved. She reported back on some of the developmental opportunities that are available to local councils, and we talked about how councillors might take advantage.

Much useful material is available via the website, but is password protected, limiting access to those who are given (and can remember) the means to access it. I suggested that we might move more of that information into the public domain, an idea that seemed to meet with some approval. At the moment, most information flows via the Parish Clerk, and whilst they usually pass that information on efficiently, not all Clerks are as enthusiastic or, worst still, competent in doing so. Whilst we’re lucky like that in Creeting St Peter, it isn’t so everywhere.

We discussed neighbourhood plans, which have run into difficulties due to the general unhelpfulness of Mid Suffolk’s chronically underresourced planning department - my fellow councillors are pretty scathing about their failings, it appears.

There was a brief discussion about possible motions to the County AGM, and I suggested two things, firstly for a SALC campaign to encourage younger people to come forward as potential Parish Councillors, the second to call for meetings to take place at more accessible times and in easier to reach places. By holding meetings during the working day, you exclude potentially good people, and send out a message that younger people aren’t really welcome.

We ended with a discussion of future guests/speakers. I suggested either one of the new Suffolk Constabulary Community Engagement Officers, or someone to talk about Suffolk Highways proposals to devolve some minor works to Parish and Town Councils. The other popular suggestion was to have someone explain what would be happening as a result of the merger of Ipswich and Colchester Hospitals, a matter of grave concern in some quarters.

It was a surprisingly good meeting, well chaired by Josephine Lea from Needham Market, and we were done pretty much on time, so I’d have to mark down the evening as a success.

Suffolk's Parish councillors meet - nobody dead...

Back on the Parish Council after a few years in self-imposed exile, I have to some extent picked up where I left off, representing the Council to an unsuspecting outside world. And, in that capacity, I was called upon to attend the Annual General Meeting of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils (SALC) last week.

Our new Chair, Machala, had also decided to come along to find out how valuable (or otherwise) SALC is. And so, on a cold, drab evening, we made our way to Elmswell. The Community Centre there was our venue, and it was nice to see that they had managed to find somewhere within easy walking distance of a railway station - past meetings seemed to be held in Haughley, virtually impossible for non-drivers.

Having glanced at the agenda, one thing did stand out, the absence of women in senior positions amongst the elected members. The Chair, the President, all four Vice-Presidents, even the Auditor and Deputy Chairman - all men. I wasn't going to let that go unchallenged.

And so, at the point whereby the Vice-Presidents were to be adopted by acclaim, I sought the floor. "May I say, before I continue, that the slate of candidates are a fine body of men. Which is rather the problem, they're all men. Couldn't the Executive Committee do something about that?".

Apparently, they had approached all seven Suffolk MPs (all Conservatives, one notes), and neither of the women (Therese Coffey and Jo Churchill) apparently wanted to serve. It appeared not to have occurred to them that some of the excellent women in local government across the county might have been an option.

There was a promise to try harder next year and, as I'm not one to labour a point, I'll give them an opportunity to do better next year. I'm not terribly optimistic, if the truth be told, but why not give them a chance?

The reports were informative, if not exciting, before we moved on to our guest speaker, John Connell, who is the Head of Neighbourhood Policy at the Department of Communities and Local Government.

John appears to have an interesting view of the level of capacity at our tier of government and talked enthusiastically about the opportunities to take on responsibilities for social care and the like. One wonders whether he has ever experienced life in a small parish like Creeting St Peter, or spoken directly to parish councillors from communities like ours. We have no capacity, no budget, and no means to obtain either from our population of 275.

I can't say that I was impressed by him either, especially after he made a number of slightly cheap jokes at the expense of civil servants - you can always tell the ones who have come straight into the higher echelons from the private sector.

Finally, we had some motions to discuss. Leiston-cum-Sizewell wanted to enforce a satellite navigation system on lorry drivers to make up for police failings to enforce 7.5 tonne limits. Machala and I were opposed, as we couldn't really see how it was enforceable, but were nonetheless surprised when it was defeated.

Somersham wanted more support for Neighbourhood Watch organisations, which we supported and was passed overwhelmingly, whilst Claydon and Whitton Rural were opposed to automatic precept referendums - we, and the meeting as a whole, didn't need persuading there.

Finally, a poorly phrased motion from Hadleigh urged Government to make it easier to decriminalise parking enforcement. Initially, what they really wanted was unclear, but it emerged that they wanted district councils to have the power to enforce parking regulations. We were supportive of that, and I added an amendment to allow local councils to do so should they wish, something that towns like Haverhill, Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds might well be interested in.

Awards for best newsletters and websites were handed out, before the meeting came to an end.

Was it worth going? I'm not so sure. It is useful to make contacts with nearby parishes, but we can do that at our area meetings, and given that the National Association of Local Councils needs to do far better at lobbying, given my recent experiences of it, it is not obvious what the benefits of participation are at that level. It also looks a bit like a closed shop.

We'll see though, and if they pick an accessible venue next year, I might even go again...