13th Edition of Arnold-Baker on Local Council Administration The comprehensive and authoritative guide to local government law has been extensively revised for its 13th edition. List price: £164.99 Price through LALC - £131.99, which is a saving of 20%. Please contact Lindsey to order a copy.

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Training We still have availability at the following sessions. Book now to avoid disappointment! (Please book via the new CRM).

Clerks’ Networking Day (including SLCC Lincolnshire branch meeting/AGM) 7 th December 10am-4pm Dunholme Village Hall, LN2 3SU

Charity Law (Day 1 of 2) 13th December 1.30pm-3pm Zoom

Charity Law (Day 2 of 2) 14th December 1.30pm-3pm Zoom

New Councillor Session 24th January 6:00pm-9:00pm Zoom

Coming soon - Elections Workshop February - TBC Planning for councils 21st February 7:00pm-9:30pm Zoom

Allotments (Day 1 of 3) – Tenancy and Policies - 1 st March 2.00pm-3.30pm Zoom

Allotments (Day 2 of 3) – Site Facilities and Health & Safety 8 th March 2.00pm-3.30pm Zoom

First Aid At Work 14th March 9.30am-4.30pm The Old School, Dunholme, LN2 3QR

Allotments (Day 3 of 3) – Self-management for Association Councils 15th March 2.00pm-3.30pm Zoom

***Training venues are booked once a number of bookings have been received. This allows LALC to book venues based on where the majority of delegates are travelling from. If there are less than 10 bookings on any course, the course will automatically be held at the LALC Office, 8 Market Rasen Road, Dunholme, Lincoln, LN2 3QR***

We are currently working on the training programme for the next quarter – look out for further dates being published.

Current Vacancies are published at 

https://lalc.jams.junari.com

National Survey – Council expenditure on solicitors

We are working with County Association colleagues to build a picture of how much the 10,000 parish and town councils in England spend each year on solicitors for things like land transfers, lease agreements, contracts and procurement, legal disputes, and general legal advice. Please look up the approximate total value of your legal services spend during the financial year ending 31 March 2022 and report the data via https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/PC5QJ6P. Please respond by 31 December 2022 if possible. The data will be used purely for illustration; no personal information is being collected and no contact will be made with individual councils. We will feedback the overall results in the New Year.

LALC/SLCC Clerks’ Networking Day (Open to all clerks, whether SLCC members or not)

7 th December 2022 10am – 3.45pm Dunholme Village Hall, Honeyholes Lane, Dunholme, Lincoln LN2 3SU 9.30am –

10am Arrival, registration, refreshments

10am – 12.30am ‘Sustainable Communities and the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’ – Clive Wilson & Bert Moore United Nations Association Greater Lincolnshire - https://www.unagreaterlincolnshire.org/ This workshop will enable participants to gain knowledge and understanding of Sustainable Development and help identify how Parishes can engage to promote the attainment of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Aims of the session: 1. To raise awareness of the challenges facing Local Parishes, Communities and Individuals in Lincolnshire looking forward to 2030 2. To explore what is meant by ‘Sustainable Development’ and how this is represented in the United Nations Sustainable 2030 Development Goals 3. To introduce the ideas on ‘Doughnut Economics’ and ‘Circular Economy’ 4. To share perspectives and practices from Lincolnshire Parishes with regard to Sustainable Development 5. To identify ways of working together to achieve ‘Sustainable Parishes and Communities 6. To identify support and training required for Parishes and their Councillors

12.30 - 1.30pm Christmas Buffet Lunch & networking

1.30pm – 2.15pm Rob Smith, SLCC Chief Executive a)

2.15pm – SLCC AGM for SLCC members (agenda issued by SLCC directly to members) b) 2.15pm – 3pm Budgeting and Lincolnshire Precepts workshop – Andrew Everard, LALC 3pm – 3.45pm (For SLCC members) Budgeting and Lincolnshire Precepts workshop – Andrew Everard, LALC. 

Bookings ASAP please on the LALC portal for the Clerk’s Networking Day £15.00.

NALC Chief executive's bulletin

Meeting with new local government minister NALC’s chair, Cllr Keith Stevens, had a positive introductory meeting with the new Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Local Government and Building Safety), Lee Rowley MP, this week to follow up his speech at our recent Empowering Communities conference. The minister’s responsibilities include elections policy and Elections Integrity Programme implementation, Integration Strategy and communities, planning casework and local government policy, finance, improvement, engagement in England. The minister reiterated his commitment to work closely with NALC and the sector and have regular engagement including by officials, and that he wanted to gain a better understanding of the issues we are facing which the department should be addressing. Keith took the opportunity to highlight a range of issues including: the role of local councils in levelling up and addressing big challenges such as the climate and cost of living emergencies; standards, where he urged the minister to reconsider the government response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report; funding including sector support; urging the minister to publish the response to the call for evidence on remote meetings. Local Council Award Scheme webinar This week NALC hosted a webinar on the Local Council Award Scheme which was attended by around 100 people. The free webinar covered how the scheme works, the benefits of applying for accreditation, and top tips on how to prepare a good application, followed by a question-and-answer session. You can find more details on the scheme and how to apply on the NALC website here. NALC National Network: Coastal Communities Our head of policy and communications, Justin Griggs, hosted the latest meeting of the NALC National Network: Coastal Communities on 24 November. We were pleased to be joined by Beccy Lofts from the Local Government Association’s coastal special interest group who provided an update on their work and that of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on coastal communities. It was good to hear that 13 councils at all tiers have now backed the Motion for the Ocean which helps local authorities play their part in realising a clean, healthy and productive ocean and all of the direct economic, health and wellbeing benefits it will bring. The network also agreed to identify priority issues facing coastal areas which we can work with them to promote over the next couple of years. Updated legal guidance We have updated Legal Topic Note (LTN) 54 on the protection of ownerless common land and village greens. We have added two links in paragraph 8 to government guidance on works to common land. You can find this and our extensive suite of other LTNs in the members' area of the NALC website in the LTN’s section (login required). Management Board Our Management Board met remotely on 22 November and discussed the future of our office at 109 Great Russell Street, how to engage smaller councils in shaping our services, and our programme of events including lobby day and a parliamentary event next Autumn. The Board also agreed to become a White Ribbon accredited organisation – more on that below!

White Ribbon Day Today is White Ribbon Day, an international day for eradicating violence against women and girls. It’s easy to say we support this day, but it needs to be backed up by actions, which is why I’m delighted NALC’s Management Board approved NALC becoming a White Ribbon Accredited organisation this week. As part of the day, we released a video featuring men from the sector showing their support for White Ribbon Day, as well as this message from our Chair, Cllr Keith Stevens. We also published a blog by Cllr Kay Wesley, a White Ribbon Champion for Congleton Town Council, on their journey to becoming accredited. I’d like to encourage councils to explore this for themselves. Our health and wellbeing webpage has been updated with a new section on violence against women and girls. I’ll provide further updates on our progress to becoming accredited in due course. Practitioners Guide technical working group The multi-stakeholder working group responsible for considering changes to the Practitioners Guide for the financial year 22/23 met this week. It is made up of representatives from NALC, the Society of Local Council Clerks, the Association of Drainage Authorities, and from one of the auditors appointed by Smaller Authorities Audit Appointments. The meeting covered several possible updates and will meet again in the new year to confirm those changes and set a timeframe for the update to the guide. On the blog: planning applications in a digital planning system One of local councils' essential duties is to analyse and comment on planning applications. Tristram Cary from Geoxphere has written for the NALC blog about how this task can be made easier if planning applications are loaded into a digital mapping system and analysed against all the relevant constraints. NALC response to levelling up funding inquiry In our response to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry into levelling up funding, we have stated that the government must act quickly to give local councils the same access to apply for central government funding, including for levelling up, as principal councils. We also highlighted the weakness of the government's current system of assessing deprivation which was considered inaccurate and often needed to identify the most deprived communities in many of England's parished areas. 

Out and about I was pleased to join a panel session at the well-attended in-person Town and Country Planning Association conference on levelling up this week. I spoke about our view that local councils have a vital role to play in levelling up and the promised review of neighbourhood governance by the government should make it easier to set them up across the country. There was much interest in how best to engage communities and the role of neighbourhood planning being recognised, indeed perhaps it could help with local retrofitting strategies to help tackle climate change. And finally... With village halls at the heart of so many communities, especially in rural areas, it was good to see BBC Radio Four’s Today programme this week highlight the impact of rising energy costs. According to our Rural Coalition colleagues Action for Communities in Rural England, over half of village halls are reporting financial difficulties, and one in ten may not be able to pay their energy bills and will be forced to close. The story also features Gamlingay Parish Council who helped protect their ‘eco-hub’ through future proofing with renewable energy sources. You can listen again here (21.13 to 25.06) and more information about ACRE’s support for village halls is here