Just to close off the 'Jackie Weaver' narrative from this time last week - I wish I had £1 for every time someone on a Zoom call I joined mentioned it this last 7 days! Enough for fish and chips twice, for the walk along Weymouth promenade should we be venturing out, maybe in a few weeks.
Just wanted to flag up some training taking place next week where we have a few spaces left - with so many uncontested elections in 2019 and current casual vacancies, this course with Breakthrough Communications could be really useful for some of our members. The course is called 'Finding New Parish & Town Councillors' - be quick though to book as time is against you. Our new training partners from 2020 have been getting great reviews and we have more training content from them for the remainder of 2021 - give it a whirl!.
Finally, I know from chatting to a number of you and exchanging emails this week; there is quite a bit of work currently being undertaken to review theDorset Local Plan. If you haven't allocated any time yet in a council meeting, don't leave it too late as the deadline for responses is 15th March 2021.
Breaking news......I've just heard of a 'victory in court for Britney Spears' so maybe Jackie Weaver will continue to make more headlines? - it's a strange time to be alive.
Keep smiling....
Neil
Please forward this update to elected members so they can also keep up-to-date and have an appreciation of what's happening in the sector.
INFORMATION | GUIDANCE | ADVICE
1. On-line Banking Protocol
An experienced Clerk in Dorset, who looks after a number of small and medium sized parish councils, has written an On-Line Banking Protocol. The Clerk is very happy for us to share this document with DAPTC's other member councils and you can view the protocol here.
It has been written for working with Lloyds Bank, however, we thought that you might like to look at the protocol and if necessary use it as a basis for your council, to be amended as necessary.
We hope you find it useful.
2. Request for information from a Dorset Clerk.
A West Dorset parish council is currently reviewing the number of contracted monthly hours that their Clerk works. They would be very interested to know how many hours a month other Clerks are contracted to work for their parish council. They would therefore be interested in details on the following items to help them make a comparison between other councils. The parish council has an electorate of around 460, with 10 councillors. The Clerk currently works 40 per month and has responsibility for allotments, cemetery, play park and playing fields, website and social media. The council holds 10 meetings per year plus working group meetings as required. The council annual precept is £15,000.
If you have any information that you wish to share, please let us know by emailing the DAPTC office here.
3. Do you manage a Village Hall?
Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) are keen to promote its online record for village halls which lets the world know what they’re doing as ACRE celebrates 100 years of rural action, as well as their hopes for the future. The ‘Village Halls Domesday Book’, as ACRE are calling it, can be accessed here. Nearly 400 halls have signed so far! To find out more about ACRE take a look at their website.
4. Section 137 Expenditure Limit set for 2021/2022
Please note that the appropriate sum for the purpose of section 137(4)(a) of the Local Government Act 1972 (the 1972 Act) for parish and town councils in England for 2021-22 is £8.41.
5. Website offer for smaller parishes
DAPTC have teamed up with the technology company Aubergine to enable smaller parish councils in our membership to obtain a very reasonably priced WCAG (Web Content Accessibilty Guidelines) compliant parish council website. The website is now very close to launch for our first council which is currently being tested, after this we will contact the other councils that expressed interest to let them begin the process of loading up their content. We'll be in touch before the end of February.
Further information on the offer can be found here.
If your council is interested in signing up to this offer, or hearing more please contact the DAPTC office.
6. The 2021 Census - 21st March 2021
DAPTC will be working with Dorset Council and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council to give some practical tips on how your council can help to engage your communities in the lead up to the Census going live next year.
The person who is taking the lead on the 2021 Census in the Dorset is Philip Eades. Philip can be reached via philip.eades98@field.census.gov.uk
Philip has provided us with a number of resources and links to further information that your council will find useful. These are all shown below:
As well as providing you with this regular E-News, we intend to introduce a quarterly publication which showcases the work being done around the county by our members. Please send into us your news with a view to it being included in the publication.
We would be very happy to receive any photographs (along with your permission to reproduce them) and news articles as soon as you have them. Please send them in to the DAPTC office
Here's a special treat from our On-Line learning provider Nimble, to help you celebrate St Valentine's Day! Click on the heart to find out how easy on-line learning can be! To get started click in the top left hand corner of the screen on the three horizontal lines.
February’s edition of the training e-newsletter (link above) was sent on 3rd February and includes the following information:
- 18 February Finding New Parish & Town Councillors (limited spaces left)
***DON’T MISS OUT : YOUR ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO ATTEND IN 2021***
- Planning & Neighbourhood Planning – new dates released including some evening dates/times
- New Councillor Induction – brand new offer; first training on 29th March 2021. Monthly training for newly elected/co-opted councillors
- Code of Conduct & Register of Interests - DAPTC are currently writing a new course to roll out in March/April. More news and dates to follow
- A printable schedule of courses throughout 2021
- Courses coming up in March including new dates for Neighbourhood Planning training
More details on the changes to our New Councillor Induction training
Our training team has been busy working on a brand new offer for any new elected / co-opted Councillors. The New Councillor Induction training which starts on 29th March 2021 will now be run each month.
Previously we used to wait for a reasonable number of new councillors before staging a training session. We've changed that approach and will now run monthly training for new councillors. It is made up of 4 components over the course of their first 4/6 weeks and is booked by the Clerk:
~ Attending a council or committee meeting where you have been elected or co-opted ~ Attending one of our monthly drop in sessions called 'What We Do' that
gives an overview of the support DAPTC can give (75 mins) ~ The new e-learning module - Introduction to Local Councils (45 mins) ~ Webinar - New Councillor Induction (90 mins)
All Clerk’s need to do is to book a New Councillor Induction (4) course for a date that suits and we will automatically enrol you on the e-learning Introduction to Local Councils (3) module. You are then left to pick a convenient date for 'What We Do' (2) when we write to confirm 3 & 4. Depending on when you join council 1-4 components may not run in that order. It is more beneficial if you have attended a council meeting as the first step
We hope the above programme helps clerks and chairs get their new councillors hitting the ground running. The cost per delegate is £35 all three sessions listed above.
The CiLCA Portfolio Guide 2021 has been recently updated. Take a look at the guide for more information on how the qualification is now administered and what subjects are included in the qualification.
I
NALC's dedicated Coronavirus webpagenow includes updated information on the possibility of the return of face-to-face meetings, suggestions to help prepare, risk assessment considerations and some tips to help manage remote meetings.
NALC's Statement on Handforth Parish Council's meeting going viral
Read NALC's statement in response to videos of a remote meeting of Handforth Parish Council which has gone viral online and attracted significant media attention.
Do you want to keep up with Dorset Council Meetings?
You can access all the Committees and meetings held in public that Dorset Council Adminsters on the Dorset Council Website Committee pages here. On this page you can also access the Dorset Council Constitution that sets out the detail of the governance arrangements, and also the calendar of meetings. Agendas and associated reports are published 5 clear days ahead of each meeting.
You will see on the right hand side an option to “subscribe to updates” as shown below. If you click on “subscribe” you will then be invited to select those Committees that are of interest to your Parish Council.
Alternatively, you may choose to subscribe to the Modern.gov app that you can download from the app store on your device - this is a free app. Once you have the app, you can then subscribe to Dorset, and again, sign up for the Committees that are of interest. The benefits of using the Modern.gov app are that you can make notes for your own reference on the documents, bookmark pages and navigate simply to each report.
Have your say on Dorset Council's Local Plan
Dorset Council's Local Plan consultation began on 18th January 2021 and will last for eight weeks. For information on where you can view the plan and details of how the consultation will take place, please see the attached document.
You can view and comment on the consultation here.
Better Days - Day Opportunities and Support - Survey
Dorset Council Adult Social Care and Services are keen to hear from you if you use the following services:
Get the latest news from Dorset Council, including leisure centre offers, waste and recycling, libraries and more. Sign up to their various newsletters here.
Community Engagement - Website Content & Navigation
We are looking for more volunteers to join our group to help us review the structure of our content and website navigation to ensure it is user-friendly, accessible and easy to understand. Do you think you could help?
To get involved and join the group, please complete our quick survey here.
The NHS have now started the COVID-19 Vaccine programme. To find out more about the COVID-19 Vaccine please visit the NHS Vaccine Page.
Through our partnership with Dorset CCG, the communications team have asked that we share the attached social media assets which can be used on your website and social media profiles.
