Round Table, NALC Star Council Awards, Financial Regulations Template Reminder, Extraordinary Meetings
You may be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into Autumn and I hear reports of even our most resilient of colleagues being drawn back to the central heating controls and here we are in mid July. Still, schools are breaking up, suitcases are being hauled out of lofts and this weekend you will be unable to escape football fever! Summer is officially here!
This week I represented BMKALC in a round table event in London to discuss the possible impact and development of local planning. Others around the table included NALC, Planning Aid, PAG, Councils, Locality and The Place. Thanks to Neil Homer for arranging. Preparation for this meeting included a review of manifesto’s, The Planning Commission report, case studies and personal experience. Sadly despite an invitation we didn’t have anyone from the MHCLG, but I guess they weren’t sure who to send, given this meeting was convened much earlier this year.
Cllr Bray and I attended a meeting with a member council midweek, and the importance of ensuring that “The View” is circulated to all councillors was reaffirmed. If councillors have instructed you, clerks, not to circulate this, please ask your council to elect a councillor representative to be added to our mailing list. Previous editions of the View are available on the BUCKSALC.Gov.uk website
The NALC Star Council Awards are now well underway, closing date for nominations 6 September 2024 and I encourage you all to consider nominations to the one of all of the categories available. Last year our area had nominations in two categories, lets do better this year, we have fabulous councillors, clerks and councils, you only have to draft 150 words to support the nomination.
Further from NALC, Legal Topic Note 79 relating to staff pensions has been updated. At our fortnightly meetings we an update on the Financial Regulations template issued earlier this month and were all sternly reminded that it a template and still requires your council to review and provide the appropriate numbers for your council. Read the accompanying notes page at the front of the Regulations page and will direct you to what you can and cannot do. We are arranging some in person training with Kevin Rose from the Internal Auditor Forum for clerks and RFO’s on this subject so watch out for an email from Lorraine with details.
I have already written to the 8 MP’s who represent our area, congratulating them on their success and highlighting on a national stage the matters of Conduct and Allowances and, on a local level, the challenges in the planning process and developer funds and the devolution / delegation of assets / services to town and parish councils. Lobby Day isn’t until February 2025, they missed out 2024, and I didn’t want to wait.
Our interesting questions for this week included the convening of and summonsing of Councillors to, Extraordinary Meetings, to whit Conveners sign the Agenda but it is the Clerk who summonses the councillors and drafts the agenda in consultation with the Conveners. Another exam quality question related to interests of councillors in a parish where there are number of invested interests which overlap.
Next week we have BC Clerks Forums, BMKALC Management Team, the second run of Chairing Skills and CiLCA Unit 3. It will be another busy week requiring us to be out and about, don’t be alarmed if we don’t answer the phone, leave a message of drop us an email and we will respond as soon as we have a moment.
We wish you a great weekend, Sunday looks like the best day for sunshine and we look forward to speaking with you next week.
Kind regards
Mel & Lorraine