Swale Borough Council’s Policy and Resources Committee considered a recommendation to delegate authority to senior officers to complete the legal and financial steps needed to create new parish and town councils following the council’s Community Governance Review.

Swale Borough Council’s Policy and Resources Committee considered a proposal on 9 September 2026 to delegate authority to the Head of Legal and the Director of Resources to carry out the legal and financial work required to implement the results of the borough’s Community Governance Review (CGR).

What the Community Governance Review decided

Full Council agreed on 22 July 2026 to take forward the CGR recommendations. These include the formation of a number of new parish and town councils, boundary amendments to a number of existing town and parish councils, a name change, and changes to councillor numbers. The papers did not specify which parishes or towns are affected.

A Reorganisation Order will need to be created to give legal effect to these changes. The order will establish the new parish and town councils and set out the boundary changes, name change and councillor number changes for existing councils.

Why the delegation is needed

Officers said the delegation was necessary because, without it, they would be unable to progress the legal and financial steps required to implement the CGR recommendations, and new parish and town councils would not be able to be legally formed.

The Reorganisation Order must be made and signed before the Structural Change Order for the new unitary council is made — a step expected to occur in March 2027. Once the order is made, the council must publicise it, including maps of affected areas, and inform the Secretary of State and other relevant bodies.

Under the Local Government Finance (New Parishes) (England) Regulations 2008, the billing authority — Swale Borough Council — has the power to anticipate a precept for new parish and town councils. The Section 151 Officer would be responsible for calculating the initial precept, which would be included in the Reorganisation Order and in the Council Tax report to Full Council in February 2027. Once new parish and town councils are legally established with elected councillors, they would then have the power to set their own budgets and future precepts.

Officers noted there were no financial implications for the council arising from the delegation itself.

The council had not published the minutes of the meeting at the time of writing, so the committee’s decision is not yet on the public record.

Sources

Top image: illustrative, computer-generated. Illustrative AI-generated image. This is not a photograph of any real location in Swale or Kent.