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Concerned tax payer

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Council complaint from Cllr Foster
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I have just been looking at the councils minutes relating to the complaint registered by Cllr Foster and I am shocked. 

From the minutes of 10th July - 'A resident asked who had made the challenge, Councillor Robert Foster confirmed that he had submitted the challenge. The resident asked how much money will be saved by the submission of the objection. Councillor Robert Foster stated that he doesn’t know. The resident asked again why we were spending potentially £30,000 of council money to save what is unknown and that using the money more positively would benefit the community – they asked if the fighting could stop. Councillor Foster could not explain the reason he had submitted the challenge, however RF stated the objective was to bring about change. The withdrawal is not possible so the challenge must run and that will incur fees from PKF Littlejohn alongside their regular fee.'

So he doesn't know why he submitted the complaint and has no idea what its going to achieve, so its basically a waste of time and money, whilst this has been happening a spend cap has been applied due to unknown costs of dealing with this ridiculous complaint. 

From the meeting of 9th October - full information is in this link - 2025-0265-PKF-Littlejohn-Costs-2023-24-Audit-Challenge.pdf

So far the costs are - Clerk £1,117.88 plus any hours for October, auditor £7645.26 

Multiple issues were raised by Cllr Foster, most of which have been thrown out by the auditor, just 2 which have been upheld, although the final report hasn't yet been published, from the information available these seem like trivial matters and this is going to cost us taxpayers almost £10,000! Where is the saving of money that Cllr Foster thinks is going to come from this?!

In light of this I feel Cllr Foster needs to submit a public apology to both the tax payers and council along with his resignation - maybe the council can actually crack on with doing something for the local community rather than wasting time and money on stupid complaints like this!

 



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Anonymous

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This is exasperating. You should bring this up at the next council meeting. There were a couple of complaint points upheld, but it does seem to be a massive amount of money spent pointlessly.

I'm looking forward to a line being drawn under all of this so that things can go forward more positively. Maybe a public apology is what is needed from Cllr Forster. I am sure we would all like to see the Council working more cohesively.

 



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Anonymous

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Unfortunately this has been rumbling along for over 2 years. It will probably cost more than £10000 of our tax payers money! Mr Foster will not resign , SNDC will do nothing about him our our co council. The whole community council is a shambles !



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Anonymous

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I don't think the whole community council is a shambles. They manage the playing field well. 

SNDC should have more powers to deal with "councillor" problems. Councillors have a code of conduct to work to, so nothing concrete there. Councillors used to be held accountable until the Coalition Government removed this standard back in the 2010's. 



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Anonymous

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They are a shambles. Why has the running of the playing field been taken away from councillor Foster ,who is a volunteer , and now being overseen by the Clerk would is being paid extra to do so (...edited... ) 



-- Edited by webstation on Wednesday 15th of October 2025 02:41:52 PM

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SRCC Clerk via Webstation

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The following was forwarded by the Clerk regarding a statement made by the Chair of the Council, Sue Hewitson, at the Council meeting held on Thursday 9th October - draft minutes of the meeting are available on the SRCC website: https://spoonerrow-cc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads//2025/10/2025-0300-2025-October-Minutes-DRAFT.pdf

   

I wanted to address council and discuss the response from PKF Littlejohn to the challenge made with respect to the 2023/2024 Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) The 2023/24 AGAR was previously audited by our own internal auditor and also by PKF Littlejohn in 2024 and no accounting errors were found. 

 

In August of 2024 there was a challenge to the 2023/24 AGAR. It was established in a previous council meeting this was submitted by Councillor Robert Foster. For reasons only known to himself, Councillor Foster chose to submit this challenge to PKF Littlejohn, rather than ask council to consider his concerns. 

  

As a council, we recently received a copy of the response sent to Cllr Foster on his challenge of the AGAR. PKF Littlejohn have upheld 3 minor administrative points, which as a council we will address and put in place amendments to our standing orders. PKF Littlejohn found nothing to indicate any wrongdoing. 

 

As a council, this challenge has stifled many community programs, as we were unsure how much this investigation would cost the council.  

 

This has been a very stressful time for our council, and I wish to thank my fellow councillors and our very able clerk for their help and support in resolving this matter. 

 

The burden placed on both councillors and the clerk has been significant. 

The cost to our community is multifaceted, the final bill will be in the region of £10,000. This is a combination of fees to PKF Littlejohn, and costs related to the additional hours for the clerk in support of their enquiries. This cost is money that should be spent on community projects not defending a malicious challenge by one of our own councillors. 

 

Secondly, our own residents have felt short-changed by our lack of progress in implementing improvements due to our self-imposed spending cap. 

As a small council we should be using the funds we have to enrich the community we live in, not to pay auditors to investigate malicious and unfounded accusations. I hope that in the future Councillor Foster will recognise that there is a financial imperative in working with the council in resolving any concerns he may have, rather than the approach he has demonstrated here  

 

After 6 years of turmoil in this council could we just get on with the job of bringing a bit of joy rather than unhappiness to our community. 

 

 



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A resident

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Unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg. We have a community council who act like a bunch of school children, who don’t agree on anything, always sniping at each other and achieve very little. Until they are removed we will have much of the same. 



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Anonymous

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I wonder who wrote this?!!  I've read the minutes from 9th October and it is clear where the problem is. I think Cllr Foster should explain himself and apologise on wasting so much of our hard-earned council tax money. I am quite annoyed. I would suggest that the other councillors are not sniping but showing their concern at the waste this "complaint" has generated. One thing I do agree on is that we all need to carefully consider who we vote for at the next election.



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