Parish Council Structure and Reorganisation
In line with many other Parish Councils, this Council has resolved to strive for 'Quality Status'. 'Quality Status' is an evidence based qualification / accreditation that requires a Council to prove that it carries out its affairs according to set rules and standards, provides proper information to (and consultation with) residents and employs an officer who has achieved an accredited qualification. Acquiring this status should allow the Council to take on more responsibility and to obtain more funding to be used directly in Holmes Chapel for the benefit of its residents.
Having taken this decision, it became clear that we had to review how the Council operated and begin to implement changes that would allow us to comply with the requirements of the ‘Quality’ process. We realised that we had to:
- formalise some of our processes to become more open and accountable
- begin to deliver more to the residents of Holmes Chapel and encourage them to participate in the development of the village
- develop a structure that allowed all Councillors to have full access to information giving them the opportunity to develop their own ideas and work on bringing these to the Council’s notice for possible implementation.
The result was the development of a revised constitution which sets out the Standing Orders (the way in which the Council conducts its business) and Financial Orders (the way in which the Council will prepare and report its Finances) along with a new Committee structure. This document known as 'Governance and Administration' was accepted in July this year and is in the process of being implemented across the Council.
We have a 12 member Council supported by two Committees:-
- Planning
- Finance and General Purposes
This is the formal structure but there are also Task Groups which are created and dissolved when required and which carry out specific tasks providing reports and recommendations to the Committees and Council. These Task Groups can have non-Council members on them who provide specific expertise or local knowledge and are likely to be residents of Holmes Chapel.
Detail of the current task groups and their membership can be downloaded here.
This structure is designed to allow the Council to deliver more value to Holmes Chapel by allocating specific Councillors (with other support) to specific tasks that need special focus allowing the Council and its Committees to carry out their main functions of reviewing recommendations and taking decisions.
Finance & General Purposes Committee
Finance
- Accounts
- Computer
- Risk Management
- Budget and financial control
General management
- Monitor and update management plan and programmes/ systems
Liaison
- Communication between Council and other committees
- General organisation of agendas and workloads
Planning
All Local councils are statutory consultees on planning applications made to the planning authority in their area. For most planning applications the local planning authority is Congleton Borough Council. Cheshire County Council deals with some specialist applications e.g. schools, minerals, waste
The main function of the Planning Committee is to consider and comment on planning applications. A few major planning applications will be referred to the full Council.
The remit of planning is embodied in the following:
The Planning Committee shall have executive powers to deal with all matters referred to it by the Council for final decision and to comment on planning applications unless an application is certified by
- the Chairman of the Council or
- the Chairman of the Planning Committee or
- the Clerk of the Council or
- any 4 members of the Council
to be of sufficient importance to be referred to the full Council. This will be because it will have a major impact on
- a large section of the population of the village or
- the village facilities or infrastructure
- the neighbourhood or the street ‘scene’