Our aim is to represent the residents of Creswell Parish to the best of our ability.
The Role of the Parish Clerk - Information for Residents
Creswell Parish Council would like to provide come clarification about the role of the parish clerk and how residents can help ensure the council's limited resources are used effectively.
What does the Parish Clerk do?
The parish clerks is employed by Creswell Parish Council to administer the business of the council. The clerk supports the council in carrying out its functions and is responsible for matters including preparing agendas and minutes, implementing council decisions, dealing with statutory and administrative requirements, managing council correspondence and providing professional advice to councillors.
The clerk works for the parish council as a corporate body. The role is not a general secretarial or administrative service for individual councillors or residents.
Creswell Parish Council employs one part-time clerk for just 8 hours per week, normally worked on a Monday. Those hours therefore have to be prioritised towards council business, statutory responsibilities and decisions made by the council.
The clerk does not continuously monitor emails or social media pages throughout the week, and residents should not expect an immediate response to messages or comments posted online.
Reporting issues and contacting other authorities
Many matters affecting the parish are actually the responsibility of other organisations, including Stafford Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Staffordshire Police and other public bodies.
Where residents are able to report an issue directly to the responsible authority, we would encourage them to do so rather than asking the Parish Clerk to make the report on their behalf.
The Parish Council is, of course, happy to signpost residents towards the appropriate organisation where it can.
This principle is already reflected in the Council's approach to matters such as road-traffic concerns: the Council may direct residents to the appropriate authority but does not ordinarily investigate or report alleged offences on behalf of individual residents.
Sharing information within the community
We would also encourage residents to share useful publicly available information with one another.
If a resident has found information about a local application, consultation, road closure, service or other community matter, please feel free to share it directly with other residents or on community social-media pages.
It is not necessary for information to be sent to the Clerk with a request that the Clerk then redistributes or republishes it. Doing so uses some of the Council's very limited administrative time simply to pass on information which residents are perfectly able to share themselves.
The Parish Council welcomes an active community in which residents help to keep one another informed.
Please continue to contact us
None of the above is intended to discourage residents from contacting the Parish Council.
Residents are very welcome to contact the Clerk about Parish Council business, and the Council values information from residents about matters affecting the parish.
We simply ask residents to recognise the distinction between administering the business of the Parish Council and providing a general secretarial, reporting or information-sharing service for the wider community.
With only eight Clerk hours available each week, making that distinction helps ensure the Council's limited staff resources can be concentrated on its statutory responsibilities, Council decisions and work undertaken for the benefit of the parish as a whole.
Further information on the clerk (Proper Officer) and RFO 's role and duties can be found in our Policies and Procedures section.