Buckinghamshire elections and meeting dates, NALC Communications and Compliance Advisory Service, Parish Liaison, ICO Fees
Dear Councillors
Further update on elections and meeting dates. Buckinghamshire Council indicate that the parish count will only take place on Saturday 3rd of May. Sunday the 4th and Monday the 5th, which is a bank holiday, do not count as clear days. Given that you summons on the first day back at work which is Tuesday 6th May, your three three clear days will be the 7th, 8th and 9th, you’re unlikely to get much support for a Friday meeting so realistically your first meeting day will be the following Monday 12th. Further rules which say we must meet within 14 days means this is going to be a very busy week for us all! We’ve converted and attached a Word docx, poster for you to edit and use if you wish.
Also an important reminder, the nomination process is a private matter not a parish matter. Existing councillors must not rely on their Parish Council Clerks for delivery of their private nomination papers, or consider claiming expenses from their parish council relating to their nominations.
Working with NALC and and our ALC colleagues we now have more details about Communications and Compliance Advisory Service, which our members are able to both access through our member services. Go to our members page and request advice using the Breakthrough Communications link.
What issues can we support with?
Here’s a summary of the kinds of issues we’ve been assisting councils with so far, where they’ve been referred to us by their county association:
- Issues and problems dealing with the press and media
- How to engage with the community on a challenging communications issue
- Dealing with a ‘crisis communication’ issue
- Social media advice (both proactive and when challenging)
- Internal communications challenges within the council
- Dealing with challenging UK GDPR requests (such as Subject Access or Right to be Forgotten requests)
- UK GDPR compliance in councils with regard to operations and practice, such as CCTV, council services, data processing etc
- Dealing with Freedom of Information requests
- Managing backlash or resistance during public consultations
Many Parishes, although fewer than usual, joined us in Aylesbury for the BMKALC / BC Parish Liaison meeting. Cllr Sharon Williams chaired the meeting and BC Cllr Arif Hussain, Deputy Chief Executive, Sarah Ashmead and Assistant Chief Finance Officer, Iain Watters each gave us an update from their area’s within BC.
The Liaison meetings have become opportunities for open conversation informally during the 30 mins social time at the start and then in the dialogue across the floor during the meeting.
It was Cllr Hussain’s final Parish Liaison as he will not be standing for re-election and I’d like to thank him for his continuing support in trying to bull doze the silo walls across the BC construct. We wish him well in his “retirement” although I don’t he’s quite ready yet to take to his carpet slippers!
Sarah was able to give us a summary of what we know of the Governments White Paper on Devolution. We are at one believing that the devil will be in the detail and of course no detail has yet been provided by central Government. Sarah acknowledged the very disappointing fact that Town and Parish Councils are acknowledged only three times in this While Paper. I urge you to raise that disappointment at every opportunity with your local MP’s. One of our attendees encouraged BC to be the trend setter in improving active co-operation and delivery of services with T’s and P’s.
Following concerns around the tax base setting exercise and the feeling that councils had little confidence in the base figures, Iain attended and took us through the process, acknowledging the concerns raised and that improvement could and should be made. We are looking forward to reviewing this with them in late summer.
The BC Liaison Meeting will be after the May Election, but make sure you have the BC Planning Forum in your diaries for Monday 3rd March where we will hear answers to a number of planning questions which were raised at last nights general forum meeting.
The Government have announced the changes to the ICO fees of around 29%, basically if you were paying £40, you’ll be paying £52 in future. Remember as public authorities we are all subject to registering with the ICO, duty not power!
We finished Councillor Essentials 3 part training this week with Breakthrough Communications providing the final session on GDPR and FOI’s. Lorraine is continuing work on our training calendar, to be honest she never stops as we leave gaps in the diary to service the needs which we identify through our inbox. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our website for upcoming events and it’s worth adding her email address to your contacts list so your system doesn’t reject her emails.
Thank you everyone for the nominations which I have received thus far for the annual Garden Party. I shall now be feeding this information into our summary sheet before forwarding the final nominees to the Palace. We have so many extra ordinary people in our family of parishes and it reminds me every year of the positive impact that many small steps can achieve.
We wish you a happy and relaxing weekend and look forward to speaking with you next week.
Kind regards
Mel & Lorraine