Part 2 – Lyminge Parish Council in Crisis: Missing Overtime Policy, Governance Gaps and Bullying Concerns

The follow-up to our earlier account is not pretty.

Over the last few months of 2025, with the permanent clerk on leave and a temporary clerk in post, the parish council’s long-running problems have narrowed into something very specific: overtime, missing information, and a basic breakdown in trust between staff and at least one backbench councillor.

Sitting underneath all of it is a simple but serious fact: it appears the council had no formal overtime policy at all until the very end of 2025.

From governance crisis to overtime row

By mid-November 2025, attention inside the council had shifted from general culture and bullying to hard numbers.

One councillor asked for a clear breakdown of staff overtime since August: the hours worked, the cost to the council, and whether any amounts were still outstanding. They wanted to know, in plain terms, what extra work had been done and who had authorised it.

The clerk replied that overtime details had already been reported to a finance committee and again to full council, and that pay information was available on the council’s finance system. They offered to re-circulate records and even provide a bank access log.

On paper, that sounds reassuring. In reality, it dodged the straightforward question: exactly how many overtime hours had been worked, at what total cost, and under what rules? The exchange exposed the underlying problem: overtime was being worked and paid, but there was no obvious sign of a written policy setting out when it was allowed, how it should be authorised or how councillors could scrutinise it.

A later email from the councillor pressed the point and added another concern: they had previously raised issues about rudeness and bullying inside the council, been told this would be “dealt with”, and heard nothing since. Meanwhile, someone they regarded as a bully had been brought back into a position of influence.

By the end of November, two fault lines were open: unresolved allegations about conduct and bullying, and growing mistrust over overtime that seemed to be decided on an ad-hoc basis, without a clear framework.

December: simple questions, no simple answers

Those tensions escalated in early December.

On 8 December, the same councillor wrote again asking three very simple things:

• Is there any outstanding overtime dating back to August that councillors may not know about?

• Are staff being given the Christmas week as extra paid leave, or are they using their normal holiday?

• Why is draft budget information arriving so late when the council is close to setting next year’s budget?

The first reply from the clerk focused on tone, criticising an earlier email as abrupt and calling for more formal salutations and sign-offs. The clerk confirmed that the queries had been noted and that information would be provided.

The councillor felt singled out and said so. They pointed out that they wanted to be treated in the same way as other members, rather than addressed in a more formal style that made them feel “othered”.

Later that day, the clerk sent a fuller response: overtime, they said, naturally arises when work is done after the payroll cut-off and will be paid in a later period if claimed; no extra Christmas leave had been granted; and the draft budget had already been examined in detail at a finance committee, where the councillor’s input would have been welcomed if they had attended.

Again, there was an explanation. Again, the central issue remained: all of this overtime was taking place without any obvious reference to a formal policy adopted by the council, setting out limits, procedures or safeguards.

That evening the councillor wrote once more, asking for yes/no answers, repeating their concerns about late budget papers and adding a stark personal line: they were no longer sure they could sit at a table with certain colleagues, whom they described as bullies, and were waiting on legal advice before deciding whether to attend the next meeting.

The clerk replied with a short holding note, saying the message was receiving attention and that they would respond as soon as possible.

By mid-December, the relationship had clearly shifted from strained professionalism to open distrust.

Payments, approvals and double standards

Alongside the overtime dispute was a more procedural row about paying invoices.

On 8 December, the clerk circulated a schedule of invoices and expenses due for payment and asked councillors to approve or refuse them by email, gently noting that the response rate to such requests had been poor and needed to improve if suppliers were to be paid on time.

Two days later, after a reminder, a councillor replied approving payment but questioning a set of training course invoices: who had booked the courses, when, and for whom. They pointed out that council had never been asked to approve these bookings and suspected some may never have been attended. They asked that irrelevant future bookings be cancelled.

That exchange echoed a theme already familiar in this council: money being committed first, and councillors being asked to tidy up the approvals afterwards.

A separate argument then flared over email addresses. In the same chain, the questioning councillor asked whether a colleague’s “Approved” email from a private address had been treated as valid, given that the same person had previously been told they must use their council email when authorising payments. In a healthy organisation, that inconsistency would be quietly fixed. In this one, it became more proof, for some, that rules were being applied selectively.

Rumours, new policies and the gap they reveal

By 15 December, the overtime issue had become a full-blown confrontation.

That afternoon, with just over a day to go before full council was due to sign off the budget, the councillor sent a detailed message setting out their concerns. They noted that:

• it was now more than a month since their first overtime request

• they still hadn’t had a direct answer on whether additional overtime was outstanding

• and they had been told the locum clerk had spoken elsewhere about the level of overtime they expected to receive from the parish, in the low thousands of pounds.

The councillor said they had checked every agenda and set of minutes since the locum arrived and could find no record of any overtime formally approved by the council. They had initially assumed there must have been a misunderstanding; they would not expect any officer to incur or claim that level of public money without prior authorisation. But the continued absence of a clear written response was now “causing concern”. They asked for confirmation of whether overtime was being claimed or intended to be claimed, and, if so, on what basis.

At the same time, the agenda for the full council meeting on 16 December carried a telling item: “To consider and approve a formal policy” on staff overtime, alongside a proposed policy on councillors’ use of social media and WhatsApp groups.

That single line on the agenda matters. It strongly suggests that, up to that point, there was no formal overtime policy in place at all – no agreed document setting out when officers could work additional hours, who could authorise it, how it should be recorded, or how councillors could challenge it. Overtime had been operating in a grey area, patched together by custom and assumptions rather than by a clear rulebook.

The same is true of communication: the very need for a fresh policy on social media and WhatsApp is an admission that private messaging and informal channels have become a serious governance risk.

The clerk’s stance was that these issues should now be dealt with in the proper public forum: debated, written down and adopted by formal vote. For the councillor asking questions, the timing simply underlined how long the council had been spending taxpayers’ money without such a framework.

What this reveals about a council already in trouble

Placed next to the earlier story – the disputed payment to a former finance officer, the VAT issue serious enough to involve the tax authorities, and the long-running complaints of bullying and “toxic” behaviour – this late-2025 sequence feels like the logical next step in a slow-burn crisis.

Four points stand out.

First, the absence of an overtime policy is not a minor technicality. It means significant sums could be committed and claimed without everyone knowing the rules in advance. Even if all the overtime turns out to be justified, working without a written policy is a textbook example of weak internal control.

Second, information is not reaching all councillors equally. Key details about overtime, staff leave and budget assumptions depend heavily on who can get to which meeting and who is confident navigating the finance system. Those left outside that loop feel, with some justification, that they are being asked to rubber-stamp decisions they have not fully seen.

Third, communication has broken down on both sides. The clerk is concentrating on email etiquette and process; the councillor is raising words like “bullying” and talking about needing legal advice before feeling comfortable in the council chamber. Between those positions, the calm, factual middle ground that good governance relies on has been lost.

Finally, the culture problem remains unsolved. You can write an overtime policy, a social media policy and a standing order for every situation, but if the underlying attitude is one of factions, private whispers and personal grudges, the paperwork will not, on its own, restore trust.

Why it matters beyond one village hall

It is tempting to see all this as petty drama in a small corner of Kent. But what is happening here speaks to a wider truth.

Parish councils may be the lowest tier of local government, but they handle real budgets, employ staff and shape decisions that affect daily life – from parks and paths to grants and local planning. When they operate without clear policies, when financial rules are fuzzy, and when those trying to scrutinise spending feel stonewalled, confidence in local democracy is quietly drained away.

The late arrival of a formal overtime policy on this council’s agenda is better than nothing. But it is also an admission that, for too long, public money has been managed on trust and habit rather than on transparent rules.

That should worry more than just the people who still, despite everything, turn up to sit under the strip lights and try to make this parish work.

The Shepway Vox Team

Journalism for the People NOT the Powerful