Making it easier to set up new town and parish councils?

The Department for Communities and Local Government ran a consultation on the process of setting up new town and parish councils that closed in January 2013. The results of this consultation were published in September.

Since the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 authorities such as London borough councils have the role of deciding if new parish councils should be formed in their area. Previously this decision was centralised. The 2007 act introduced a procedure called a community governance review which could be triggered by local petition. In London this procedure was triggered in 2011 by the Queen's Park ward of Westminster and led to the creation of a new parish council in 2014. The length of time it took to create this parish council points to the failings in the existing system. The campaign was well organised and followed the procedure as set out.

The responses to the consultation came from principal councils, parish councils and individuals, and are were overall in favour of some changes to the process of setting up a parish council. The options available were:

• amending existing guidance;
• changing the law;
• making it easier for neighbourhood forums (used for neighbourhood planning) to start the process for creating a new parish council; or
• some combination of the above.

The responses broadly favoured the changes proposed in all options, with some respondents strongly opposed to changes in each category.

The government response similarly proposes changes drawn from each option:

• limiting the time for a community governance review to twelve months from the receipt of a valid petition;
• reducing the number of signatures needed on a petition for a community governance review;
• making it easier for neighbourhood forums to start the process for setting up new parish councils; and
• amending guidance to local authorities undertaking community governance reviews to favour parish council proposals. 

The test of these measures will be how quickly a new council can be set up under the adapted guidance. In the case of Queen's Park the council added the extra challenge of a local referendum. This kind of extra hurdle is not to be explicitly prevented. Within London perhaps part of the problem is the lack of experience the borough councils have of parish councils. However the community governance review was introduced to London at the same time as the rest of the country and other parish councils have been set up under the 2007 regime in less time. The reduction in signatures needed to trigger a petition might make campaigners feel they have less of a challenge in order to start the review process. The other changes should ensure the review happens in a timely manner. Hopefully a community will want to test this out soon, so I can do a comparison!

Sources:

• Discussion Document, October 2012 (PDF)
• Government Response, September 2013 (PDF)

If I knew then what I know now…

If you are considering doing a PhD here is the advice I would give myself a year or so ago: start early. It is tougher than you might think to organise funding and a supervisor at the same institution. If you are doing a masters degree now, you need to be sorting out the PhD proposal and funding before you start your masters research proposal.

The first thing you should do is chew the ears off the relevant research staff at your university. They will tell you where the best places and people are for your area of interest. You need to be very open minded about what they tell you and when they suggest Prof X at some university in the outer reaches of northern England, don’t immediately dismiss it. Follow up every opportunity, to see where it goes.

Academics are a funny bunch with a weird network structure. Some have direct connections with each other, but others only know of each other through reading published papers. If you follow up the suggestion of Prof X you may find that he isn’t interested in your research but knows someone closer to home that is. This really is one resource I found in abundance. Academics know it is tough to find supervisors and more often than not are happy to point you in the right direction.

If you don’t have access to academics to help you face to face, you need to get started by trawling through university websites. This can be quite painful as academic websites are disorganised. What I found was the best way to search was to use the “ site: “ operator in Google search with the website domain of the university. For example, when searching for social science supervisors at LSE I used “social science” supervisor professor site:lse.ac.uk

Don’t be blinded by funding. There is no point applying where there is money available if you do not fit in with the research area specified. No amount of bending the truth will make your research into recycling in the Paris suburbs sound like it is related to health outcomes amongst the rural poor. You will either be found out in interview of you will waste your time applying. Otherwise you might find that you end up doing research that isn't your own and doesn’t really interest you.

Have a research proposal of no more than 200 words ready and a paragraph that succinctly summarises it. Send the paragraph, not the proposal to the contacts you uncover. If they want more they will let you know and it gives you the opportunity to monitor for feedback and incorporate it into your proposal. Don’t bother with anything longer at this stage as you will need to rewrite and expand your proposal for every application anyway later.

Focus on the research council funding. It is your best chance at getting your fees paid. Funding is released around December and then throughout the following year. There is usually a really short period from when it is announced to the deadline. You can use jobs.ac.uk to get alerts as funding in your area becomes available. The research council websites are really complex and it is worth asking your potential supervisor or the course administrator for help.

Finally, don’t just accept a supervisor because they are prepared to work with you. Evaluate their interest in your research. Think about what they are like as a person and how likely you are to still be getting on well in three, four or five years’ time. It is easy to focus on funding, but a well funded PhD with a disinterested supervisor won’t be that much fun at all.

> Enter the title here <

Although at an early stage, I'm steadily moving towards the detailed proposal that is required six months into my programme. In the meantime, I need to put a document together for the next meeting with my supervisor to summarise where I am at. I have identified some large chunks of research I want to do and have an over-arching idea of what I want to achieve. As I start to put my document together, I realise that it really needs a title.

A title would help me out when I’m describing to others what my research is about. I don’t need to pick the final set-in-stone title of my thesis now, but a working title would help me focus my mind, convey to my supervisor and others where this is going, and fill a blank space on the page.

Interestingly, I am finding it quite difficult to come up with something concise and catchy that summarises my research. I had no trouble identifying resources I will use or planning research I will undertake, but distilling it all into a title is proving troublesome. I think it is because my goals are still fairly vague and I feel like don’t want to commit myself to one path.

The vague “Community leadership in London” is my first instinct or perhaps the more stuffy “Parish councils in Greater London”. Ideally I would like to make it a question, but I am possibly getting ahead of myself. Although I have a good idea I have not decided exactly what my research questions will be. That said, it is a working title and doesn’t commit me to anything so I think I am going to opt for both, using one as a subtitle, maybe after a little word-tinkering.