This year’s Somerset Parishes Conference will take place from 9am to 4pm on Friday 3rd October at The Canalside conference centre, North Petherton (near Bridgwater).
Two representatives per SALC member council are invited to attend the conference. Although we welcome attendance by clerks, one attendee from each member council must be a councillor in order to meet our quorum and vote at the AGM.
The day will include:
The Somerset Parishes Conference provides a valuable opportunity for councillors and council officers to meet and learn from each other. It’s a chance to engage face-to-face with our Somerset partner organisations alongside a marketplace of expert service providers. Civic.ly and eibe are amongst the 16 marketplace exhibitors joining us at the conference.
You can find full details of the conference here.
The 2025 conference marketplace includes 16 suppliers to local councils, including:
The 2025 AGM agenda includes the process for nominations and appointment of company directors to serve on SALC’s board.
Any councillor on a SALC member council who might be interested in being a company director is encouraged to contact Ewan Jones, SALC’s CEO, for an informal chat and to be given more information. Ewan can contacted by email on ceo@somerset-alc.org.uk
NALC’s recently established Westminster Forum champions the interests of parish and town councils in parliament. Ahead of the second reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, and its committee stage, SALC wrote to all seven Somerset MPs, inviting them to special sessions of the Westminster Forum, and sending them NALC’s latest parliamentary briefing on the Bill.
Justin Grigg’s, NALC’s Head of Policy and Communications, writes “This Bill represents a generational opportunity for City, Town and Parish Councils. Right across the country, these hyper-local councils can help to ensure devolution and local government reform is a success by improving local democracy and strengthening public service delivery.”
The 12-page Parliamentary briefing expanded upon key messages:
Fellow county associations continue to look closely at Somerset’s experience post our recent local government re-organisation – a theme that will be a focus of the Somerset Parishes Conference on Friday 3 October.
As reported on the SALC website, the Certificate in Local Council Administration has an updated 2026 portfolio and online submission platform.
Training for the qualification is now a mandatory requirement for registration, and in Somerset training is delivered to council officers by SALC’s recognised trainer, Sam Winter.
The qualification, managed by the Society of Local Council Clerks, will re-launch towards the end of this year with registrations on the new platform opening on 2nd February 2026.
If you’re ready to embark in CiLCA in-person training and support sessions from this December, drop Sam a line to book a one-to-one conversation: sam@somerset-alc.org.uk.
The CiLCA qualification is a highly respected and valued level 3 qualification for clerks that’s frequently sought after by active and aspirational councils when recruiting. Being CiLCA qualified not only proves a clerk’s competence but can assist the council in gaining the General Power of Competence.
For those officers who are not quite ready to embark on a formal qualification, but still need more insight to the clerk role, SALC offers a series of 3 training events covering the essential basics of powers & duties, meetings, agendas, and minutes, and council finance.
More experienced clerks also can find the sessions useful as a refresher to remind them of the rules and processes that should apply, but can get forgotten when doing the day job.
The next series starts in September, for details keep an eye on the SALC website training page.
The Improvement and Development Board, which oversees the civility and respect initiative across the parish and town council sector, has recently approved the Civility and Respect Taskforce’s recommendation to introduce a Councillor’s Statement of Assurance.
The aim of the voluntary statement is that each councillor signs up as an individual to confirm that they have read and understood the Council’s code of conduct and personally commit to treating others with respect in the course of their duties.
Cornwall has already put in place the statement, with councillors now committing to take personal responsibility for improving council relations and creating a respectful, professional environment. The statement incorporates the Jo Cox Foundation’s Civility Pledge, reinforcing values of integrity, compassion, and respectful behaviour.
This new statement would be combined with the council signing up to the Pledge (if it has not already done so) and taking group responsibility.
You can follow this link to read the Civility and Respect Project Newsletter
When clearing out the old SALC office, we came across a trove of documents relating to parish councils over the decades. After a thorough sift for the purposes of GDPR, we were left with a report by NALC titled, “Pointers to Bad Practice”, summaries of reports made in the public interest and published by external auditors in respect of town and parish councils.
The document included a large number of anonymised extracts from reports made in the pubic interest that were deemed so serious as to deserve publication.
The above case is over 25yrs old, but might equally apply today. It’s imperative that cheques are never pre-signed and that modern methods of online banking include a system of checks that apply sound internal controls as required by Proper Practices.
Councillors and clerks should be familiar with the judgment in the case of Hillingdon that confirmed no councillor can act alone in taking decisions about the business of the council. This means that councillor are not permitted to take it upon themselves to make purchases or enter into contracts on behalf of the council.
If you are unsure of the rules around delegated authority and Hillingdon, SALC offers councillor and clerks training that can help you get to grips with how things should be done; see the training page on the SALC website for dates.
The appointment by the council of a competent internal auditor is vital in offering the council and public reassurance that the council is lawfully managed.
It is not the purpose of the internal auditor to detect or prevent fraud, but a good IA will act as a critical friend, helping the corporate body identify areas of weakness so that it can take action to self-correct before it becomes the subject of a report in the public interest. An IA who turns a blind eye to incorrect process, or who signs off the annual return without undertaking appropriate checks, is not the council’s friend.
If your council is seeking a competent internal auditor, section 4 of The Practitioners Guide (available on the SALC website) gives useful advice on what a council might look for in an IA, and how it might structure a basic service level agreement to cover an effective internal audit review of financial and governance records and controls.
As first reported in our September 2024 newsletter, SALC has now identified four sector-specialist firms of solicitors that can support city, town, and parish councils with the formalities of devolution of assets & services from Somerset Council.
If your council would like further information, please email info@somerset-alc.org.uk