Recently, the “great and the good” of the Town and Parish Council sector gathered in London for the Star Council Awards, our annual celebration of the work done across England in our sector, and an opportunity to lobby MPs, Peers and, probably most importantly, the Minister, for our key “asks”.

I was there in my capacity as a member of the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), and I took the opportunity to ask the new Minister, Simon Hoare, for £1,000,000. Not for me, you understand, although I’d happily carry out some study visits to see how equivalent bodies work in, say, St Lucia. But, unlike the “trade body” for principal authorities, the Local Government Association, NALC receives no funding to support its work. I am of the view that, as unitary authorities are formed across England, replacing Districts and Counties, there’s a need to upskill those Town and Parish Councils who are taking on, or might want to take on, services that the principal authorities can no longer afford.

And that’s becoming more and more important as the finances of upper tier authorities become ever tighter. Next year’s Local Government finance policy sets the limit for referendums at 3%, whereas there is no cap on precept rises for Town and Parish Councils, thus the temptation to ask our sector to take on discretionary services. We are becoming a service provider of last resort, if you like. That matters if you want something rather better than the statutory minimum for your community, for the private sector will only do it for a price and the voluntary sector is already creaking under the strain of contracts taken on and now too expensive to continue at the rates previously offered.

As an example, a local Parish Council now leases the local nature reserve from the County Council following its decision not to continue to maintain it. A peppercorn rate was agreed and in return, the Parish Council would use local volunteers to maintain it, with a small grant to cover the costs of tools and the time of the Parish Clerk. The nature reserve is now closed, as the boardwalk allowing safe access is unsafe due to structural damage and the cost of repair is far beyond any prospect of funding. It’s a facility lost, and a minor one. But public toilets, bus shelters, playgrounds and street lighting, amongst other things, are all being funded in some places by Town and Parish Councils, whilst residents are meeting the costs through increased precepts. Soon, we’ll be seeing libraries, youth clubs and highways work being done by the sector – Suffolk County Council proposed the latter a few years back.

I’m a great believer in devolution of powers and spending, but it has to be cost effective and efficient, and not all Town and Parish Councils are even – annual budgets range from over £1 million to mere hundreds. But if we’re going to take over some of the responsibilities that principal authorities have given up on, we need to improve the skills of the 100,000 or so, almost entirely unremunerated, Town and Parish councillors across England, and a chunk of funding to develop online training packages wouldn’t go amiss…

So, Minister, how about it?…

* Mark Valladares is Chair of Creeting St Peter Parish Council and a member of the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils.