http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/slm-management-fee-revealed.html

I have been looking at my parish council’s accounts for some years and have discovered a goodly number of illicit goings-on some of which I have managed to get stopped by bringing them to the attention of the External Auditor.

My parish council does not like being questioned. After one resident put in one FOI request, the Council introduced a Habitual and Vexatious Policy which it is using to stop people asking any questions. It also holds secret trials of residents that they accuse of taking up too much of the Council’s time by asking questions. That suggests that more is being covered up than has yet been discovered.

People generally are afraid to deal with matters on their own doorstep and prefer shouting at the State or larger councils from a distance. But Parish Councils are just as likely to be up to dodgy dealings and should not escape local scrutiny. In the future more responsibilities are likely to be passed down to this level of government, so we let them get away with questionable practices at our own local peril and cost. (Nottinghamshire)

I made some progress here in Liverpool when I took the printout of this 2005 report of a judicial review. The Veolia decision is far better. Its wording makes clear almost all the issues. Print it, highlight bits of it, and take it with you. They won’t know it exists otherwise.

To make these records systematic, is it possible to tag each bill to the precise line in the statement of accounts? Maybe we should come up with a formal convention so that it’s possible to scrape and collate information disclosed on numerous blogs like this.

As to the accounts system not being able to print to file — they’re obviously lying. You can prove this if you FOIed for details of the software they are using and looked it up in the feature set. Print the relevant page from the manual.

They will be cooperating only at the minimum standards set by the law — a law that predates computers. However, they cannot obstruct you from copying. So take your laptop in with a USB scanner and give them back their freshly printed pages after you have scanned them, while at the same time discussing their paper recycling policy.

The comment about the Chaplin is present not because I’m particularly fussed about the £10, but as I’m making a bigger and in my view significant point that government ought have nothing to do with religion.

One tiny piece of advice. I’d drop the para about the chaplain. It sounds petty.

It is indeed my wife who occasionally delivers consulation leaflets for the City Council.

My wife is an established casual electoral roll and election worker, and was first asked some while ago if she could help out by hand delivering consultation documentation at a time when resources to do this were unavailable.

I do not place orders or process invoices for such work, and I understand the rate paid per item is the established City Council rate.

As I have said, my wife offered to assist in an emergency and has continued to provide this occasional service as and when requested to do so.

I can categorically state that these arrangement are entirely above board and do not indicate any form of malpractice.

It is not unusual for members of the same family to be employed by the City Council; indeed, my son was employed as an engineering technician a number of years ago.

“inspect the accounts to be audited and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them”

Surely the SLM contract falls under this description?

The only exemption is for personal data of the staff of the authority.

Yes, it’s a shame that the data are not available as anything other than paper printouts. It’s almost as though IT never happened.

So who actually gets paid for the tree works?