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Renowned author JK Rowling announced yesterday that the title of her new book, to be published in September 2012, will be “The Casual Vacancy” and it will be about the events surrounding an election to an English parish council.
It is very exciting that such a respected author has written about the parish and town council sector and it will undoubtedly lead to some interesting press coverage and will raise the profile of English local government. Probably more people than ever before read the words “parish council” yesterday in all the Facebook, Twitter and blog coverage the announcement had. After all, anything to do with JK Rowling has a global audience of millions.
Some press coverage asserted that the new genre would be a complete departure from the author’s past works, but those in the sector will know that it is full of mystery, dark arts, and megalomaniac Lords! And, yes, at times, it can be magic.
Technical Accuracy
One of the intriguing things will be how technically accurate the book is. Of course, it won’t be the first time parish councils have been portrayed in fiction; The Archers, Vicar of Dibley and Midsommer Murders have all featured parish councils although often the portrayal is technically flawed and the scenes could never have occurred (lawfully) in real life. One wonders how JK Rowling conjured up the scenario in her mind and why she chose the particular title. Certainly “casual vacancy” is a technically correct description of a vacancy occurring on a parish council following the death of one of its members, but whether we shall see played out the exact statutory process that would necessarily follow such a vacancy we don’t yet know. Yesterday’s announcement implies that there will be an election (technically a bye-election), which would only occur if, in response to the statutory notice of vacancy, ten (or more) electors in the parish demand a poll. It will be fascinating to discover who, if anyone, JK Rowling used as “Technical Advisor”!
The book is set in Pagford, which is described as a “small town”. One would assume then that the local authority in question would be called “Pagford Town Council” but the announcement describes it as a “parish council”. To all intents and purposes, a parish council and a town council are the exact same thing; “town council” is simply a style that is available to any parish council under section 245, paragraph 6 of the Local Government Act 1972. However, “A Casual Vacancy” needs to make clear which it is, since the chairman of a town council may call themselves “Mayor”, which the chairman of a parish council may not.
Those of us that are sad enough will no doubt pore through the book looking for technical inaccuracies and continuity errors!
Good Publicity?
The saying goes that any publicity is good publicity and JK Rowling’s book certainly has the potential to put parish councils on the global map. Much will depend on the light in which the council of Pagford is shown. The book could of course do long term damage to the sector if, through it, the image of parish and town councils is one of in-fighting, petty-politics and back-stabbing. Certainly the sector fights hard to throw off the “Dibley” image, although despite its confusion between a parish council (civil) and a parochial church council (ecclesiastical) Dibley would surely not be a bad place to live!
On the other hand, in an age when parish and town councils are absolutely at the heart of the Localism and Big Society agendas, JK Rowling may, yet again, be firing the imagination of a generation to become intrigued, excited and engaged with a world about which at the moment they probably know very little.
JK Rowling’s “A Casual Vacancy” will be published on 27 September 2012 by www.littlebrown.co.uk.



