Parish and Town Councils are 'creatures of statute' and so can only do what Parliament allows. The Auditors are always there, counting and checking, and the expansion of Judicial Review has added Judges to the list of those peering (albeit metaphorically) constantly over our shoulders.

Our advice to Parish and Town Councils is always to start from 'What would we like to do' and only then to progress to 'Have we got the power to do that?' But we have also advised several unfortunate Councils who have had The Auditors hot on their heels. Some of them have found for themselves procedural errors or actions that turned out to be illegal. Other Auditors have responded to complaints from aggrieved citizens. In every case, it is a problem that needs resolving; either we must persuade the Auditor that we were in the right all along, or we must persuade the current members of the Council that their predecessors have left them in a mess and that this is the best way to sort it all out.

The disputes can be long and (for the Council) are often embarrassingly public. The real answer is one that many client Councils can only realise too late; Take advice before you act, rather than afterwards. But hindsight always provides the best insight and in the real world, it is sometimes all that we seem to have on any particular decision.