Guidance: Working in hot temperatures, In-box clarifications, Updates from beyond our borders, NALC/ACRE Survey, Local Councils Explained and The Good Councillors Guide publication update

The last weeks leading have extremely busy, hence the delay in getting this update to you which has been two weeks in the making! 

Firstly your Safety Announcement!

Guidance: Working in hot temperatures
In the UK, there is no legal maximum workplace temperature set in law. However, employers are required to ensure indoor working conditions are reasonable under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Workplace temperature is about more than comfort – it’s a matter of health, safety, and productivity. With the Met Office predicting a hotter-than-normal summer, understanding how to control and manage working temperatures is essential. The HSE website contains detailed guidance for employers. 

Recent Inbox Clarifications

• When statutory functions are conferred on a local council, they are given to the full council. This means that formal decisions (known as resolutions) about the discharge of the council’s statutory functions and the related responsibilities must be made at full council meetings. It is often impractical for the full council to meet every time decisions need to be made. Therefore, the legislation permits a council to delegate the performance of its statutory and legal responsibilities to a committee, a sub-committee, an officer of the authority or another local authority.

When a council delegates its responsibilities to the committee, sub-committee, officer or another local authority, they are acting for and on behalf of the council. The statutory authority for a delegation is found in section 101(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 (‘the 1972 Act’).

A council cannot delegate the performance of its statutory and legal responsibilities to an individual councillor.  The procedures and standing orders of a council should not allow for decisions about the discharge of a council’s functions to be made by individual councillors. In practice this also means councillors are not permitted to give instructions to employed officers or sub-contractors.

• Reasons to go into confidential session are:

• Engagement, terms of service, conduct and dismissal of employees
• Terms of tenders, and proposals and counter-proposals in negotiations for contracts
• Preparation of cases in legal proceedings; and
• The early stages of any dispute.

LGA 1972 ss100 and 102 and Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings)Act 1960

Updates from beyond our borders

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill – GOV.UK

Yesterday, MHCLG introduced into Parliament the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.   This provides more meat on the somewhat sparse bones announced previously, I wonder how many times we will see town and parish councils mentioned, it was only three times in the white paper!  It will be interesting to study the duty on local authorities to have effective neighbourhood governance, and establish a new Community Right to Buy, so communities can protect local assets like pubs, theatres and sports grounds.

NALC highlighted the role parish and town councils play in community safety at a recent Rural Taskforce Mission Workshop meeting on safer streets with the Department for Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office. Referring to their campaign to promote community safety and the case studies and resources we have on our website.

Have you signed the Civility and Respect Pledge? If you haven’t check out the NALC webpages, look at the tools available and lend your support to the national campaign whilst encouraging our local councils to do better.

NALC’s Martyn’s Law Steering Group has published a new, easy-to-digest advice note to help parish and town councils get ahead of upcoming terrorism protection duties under the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025

ACRE/NALC survey – Parish and town councils are encouraged to respond to the survey by 23:45 on 29 August 2025. To ensure a broad and representative range of input, we request one response per parish or town council. This initiative supports Action 20 of the Rural Flood Resilience Partnership Action Plan, which aims to help communities plan for flooding. The survey link is here.

NALC new digital resources Local Councils Explained and The Good Councillor’s Guide are now available.  Lorraine will be writing to you as we explore the possibility of printing a limited run of hard copies for our members on a cost recovery basis.  Obviously the digital links don’t work in a book, neither does the book work where there is limited wifi and you only have a smart phone to access it!  No news yet on the next edition of Arnold-Bake of Local Council Administration.

We wish you a relaxing weekend, we will be looking to stay cool, calm and hydrated so that we can look forward to speaking with you next week!

Kind regards Mel & Lorraine