Question: Feb 1st

The parish council

Yesterday, five of us met for coffee and cake* and – inevitably – to discuss village goings-on.

In summary, there seems to be a certain amount of anger directed at the parish council. One of our members said the whole lot should be sacked and made legally accountable for their actions/inactions thus far. Another thought that was drastic and suggested one of our member should stand for the parish council.

At that point someone else spoke up. They were at a meeting late last year when two people put themselves forward to fill a vacancy which had arisen on the parish council.

One candidate had 20 years in local and national government where they started at the bottom as a receptionist in social services working with service users, and completed their service at assistant director level. In that role they worked across the council in conjunction with local and national politicians, heads of departments and other directors. They had extensive experience of working with teams from inside and outside the organisation and were accustomed to setting policy and working with local and national politicians.

The other candidate seemed to have a number of fingers in different pies and finished their presentation by saying they also did a bit of property development.

The question asked of the first candidate was what would they do differently. The reply was they would go out into the community and consult with villagers and ask them what they wanted and what their priorities for the village were. Then analyse those results and formulate a strategy to deliver – or request the delivery from other organisations – of those things.

The second candidate wasn’t asked this (or any other) question. Guess which candidate got asked to join the parish council? Yes, quite.

* Moore’s Garden Centre. It’s really very nice there.