Two new Local Council Quality Award achievements, Devolved Services Focus Group & Governments Planning Consultations awareness

Great news for the Association Family as two more councils achieve their Local Council Quality Status.  Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Town Council and Waddesdon Parish Council have put in a tremendous amount of effort to achieve their Quality Status.  Congratulations to Delia and Melanie, their teams and their Councillors on achieving and demonstrating a commitment to good governance and consistent service.  Demonstrating Quality Status does require a large amount of work from the Clerks and their teams, but it could not take place with the support and acknowledgement of Council, working together to achieve this demonstrates the strength of employees and elected members working together.

You will have seen my notice regarding the Governments Planning Consultations this summer, I expect you’ve also picked it up through the SLCC and NALC bulletins too.  It’s not just Councils that can participate, any group or individual may take part, so feel free to make the information available to others.  On the topic of planning, I also brought to your attention the opportunity to book planning surgeries with Buckinghamshire Council and I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity for a 20 minute consultation to move forward those very tricky applications or to seek understanding of decisions that did not go the way you anticipated.  All the details for booking the consultations were sent to clerks.

Next week we have a Buckinghamshire Council Clerks Devolved Services, Focus Group, hosted by Rosie Tunnard.  A group of 15 councils large and small and spread across the area who have been running devolved services for the past 6 years have been invited to give feedback on what worked and what didn’t work in the previous contract.  Don’t be alarmed if you weren’t invited, you will still be asked to participate in a survey and of course having been at the sharp end of managing a devolved service agreement and contractors, you can rely on my advocacy too!

I have a draft list for future Parish Liaisons and Clerks Forums from BC and am hoping to receive one soon from MKCC too.  When these dates are confirmed they will be put into the events diary in the BMKALC Website.  We are going to start populating this with more information so do remember and remind others they can keep up to date by visiting the site. 

So, in the absence of training during August, I am taking some leave, apart from Wednesday I couldn’t possibly miss the devolved services forum!  Helen and Lorraine will on hand to assist you and will be looking forward to speaking with you.

Kind regards

Mel