5. Will the Minister make a statement on the role of community council clerks? OQ57366

Every community council must have a clerk; they are essential to the good governance of community and town councils. The Welsh Government values their contribution and we work with external partners to provide support to encourage them to develop their professional skills.

Thank you, Minister, for your response. For transparency purposes, I'd like to highlight that I am a community and county borough councillor. As you know and as you've said, community and town councils play such an important role in the sustainability of the communities that they represent, and they are the very definition of local democracy. I understand the role of community and town council clerks as being one that provides independent, objective and professional advice and support. I also see them as individuals who should be above party politics, even independent party politics, and should be both politically inactive and impartial. Because, ultimately, anything other than this casts doubt on the role that they do and will undeniably influence the advice and support that they provide. I bring this question forward because I believe that there are possible conflicts of interest for a person holding the position of clerk and also being an elected representative, either at a community, town or local authority, or any council. With this in mind, does the Minister agree that community and town council clerks should not be able to hold office as an elected councillor, and will the Minister look into making the relevant legislative changes? Thank you.

I thank Joel James for raising this this afternoon. This is something that I'll go away and give some further consideration to in the light of his comments this afternoon. But just while I have it, I'll take this chance to thank everybody who gives up their time to be town and community councillors, because through the course of the pandemic, we have really seen the value of those in terms of supporting some of the most vulnerable people in communities. So, in response to the direct question, I will give that some further thought, but thank you for the opportunity to express my thanks to the sector.FootnoteLink

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