Riding Mill villager's complaint costs parish £9,000
A complaint about a parish council's accounts has ended up costing the community an estimated £9,000.
The query made by a villager from Riding Mill was not upheld by the district auditor, yet the legal and accounting fees have left the village out of pocket.
Broomhaugh and Riding Mill Parish Council has had to transfer money from its reserves into its current account to cover shortfalls and even had to put its usual grant to the village hall on hold.
A statement released by the parish council reads: "The parish council deplores the fact that the entire cost of the process (almost £9,000 + VAT) will have to be borne by the council tax payers of Riding Mill, even though the district auditor found in the council's favour.
"This money will have to be raised by increasing the precept, by cutting services to village residents, or both. It is disappointing that the actions of a small number of village residents have resulted in a burden which will fall on every taxpayer in the village."
The complaint was made about the 2006-2007 accounts, where a villager claimed there was an illegal transaction.
The district auditor was asked to look into the legality of a charge made by the parish council for the release of a restrictive covenant on a property in Riding Mill.
It has taken auditors two years to come back with the verdict that the parish council was not acting illegally.
Clerk to the parish council Monica Anderton said: "We've had to transfer reserve money into the current account because the precept won't last until September, and we've put on hold the grant to the village hall."
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As the resident who made the objection to the 2006 to 2007 accounts of Broomhaugh and Riding Parish Council, I welcome the opportunity to make the facts more public.
The posting on this website dated 28 May 2009 is a gross and selected distortion of the truth.
The ‘item of account’ to which the objection relates was the payment of £9,000 + solicitor’s fees which the Parish Council charged for the release of a restrictive covenant from a resident in the village. It was not, as stated on the website, a complaint that there had been an illegal transaction. The objection related to the legal enforceability for charging in the circumstances which relate to properties formerly built by the Riding Mill Estate Company. Years of questioning the Parish Council about their secretive, haphazard and selective approach to this practice have received conflicting and evasive responses. A formal objection to the Audit Commission was the only way left to force the Parish Council to question their demands for money from individuals.
This has amounted to no small sum. To date £43,000 has been acquired from residents. One payment was returned when the Parish Council was challenged by a leading law firm. In the process of acquiring this money, the Parish Council has paid an undisclosed sum of council tax payers’ money. Indeed, even this current year, almost £500 has been spent by Broomhaugh and Riding Parish Council to pay for the District Valuer in an attempt to extract money from a resident when there are no grounds whatsoever to do so.
This is what Riding Mill residents should be appalled about.
If a public body such as a Parish Council, or if an individual A, asks another individual B to pay some money, nothing illegal has taken place. This explains the ‘selected’ comment in the posting on your website that the auditors have told the Parish Council that they were not acting illegally. If the objection had been as simple as this, why would it take the Audit Commission two years to reach a decision?
In fact Broomhaugh and Riding Parish Council have been found wanting by the Audit Commission. The Council has been recommended by the Audit Commission to seek expert legal advice to establish the Public Law aspects of the enforceability of the covenants. In the report the Audit Commissioner states that “there is an important issue of public policy raised by the Parish Council’s actions. Public bodies should only seek to charge where there is a clear and express power to do so coupled with a clear basis upon which any charge could be enforced. In this case the Parish Council’s own advice, with which I respectfully concur, raises doubts about both factors”.
In other words it has taken a formal objection to force the Parish Council to do what a small number of us have been asking about for nearly ten years. At a public meeting the Parish Council agreed to accept the Audit Commissioner’s recommendation and seek expert legal advice.
It is now nearly four months since Broomhaugh and Riding Parish Council and I each received the Audit Commission report. There is no sign that the expert legal advice has been commissioned. The cost for my formal objection and the expert legal advice could easily be borne by the Parish Council out of the money extracted from residents (£43,000). The burden should not fall on every taxpayer in the village. The residents themselves have had to suffer this onerous burden and harrassment from the Parish Council for too long.
Is it not curious that following the 8th June meeting the Parish Council will not meet again until 15th September?