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Welcome to the ERNLLCA website

Vacancies

For details of current vacancies please see the vacancies page.

District Meetings

North Lincolnshire District - Thursday 15 April 2021 at 7.00pm
East Riding District – Tuesday 20 April 2021 at 7.00pm
North East Lincolnshire District - Thursday 22 April 2021 at 7.00pm

Accounts Training - Free webinar 22nd April 10.30am
During this Live Training Class you’ll discover…

How Parish & Town Council accounting rules work.
- Super easy procedures to make sure your books balance.
- How VAT returns work and what scheme you should be using.
- The secrets to a straight forward year-end and getting the AGAR right.
Scribe Academy - How To Conquer Town & Parish Council Accounting & Stop Worrying Apr 22, 2021 (scribeaccounts.com)

Website Accessibility - Free "mini summit"

This hour-long "mini Summit" event will be live, online, and live-streamed on YouTube from 10am on 30 April 2021.

This session will be run by Cloudy IT. Whether you are looking to improve your website or set up a completely new one, this “virtual tour” event will showcase practical examples of how an accessible website works, for you to take away everything you need to know to make your website legally compliant and accessible in future.

www.cloudyit.co.uk/events/web-accessibility-mini-summit/

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has announced that it is once again running its awards programme this year as part of its work to recognise the local (parish and town) council sector’s achievements.

The Star Council Awards are the only awards in England to recognise and celebrate the local council sector’s brilliant contribution to its communities. Therefore, the awards are an excellent opportunity for councils, councillors, clerks, and county associations to showcase how they have made a real difference locally.

Following an unprecedented 2020, the theme for this year’s awards will be projects that have positively impacted communities in the context of COVID-19.

The five award categories are:
Clerk of the Year
County Association Project of the Year
Young Councillor of the Year
Councillor of the Year
Council of the Year
NALC will announce the winners at an online ceremony in September.

Entrants have until 25 May 2021 to submit their entries.

Find out more about the awards and how to enter

USEFUL HELP FROM PARISH ON-LINE

Click here for more info.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KEEP UP-TO-DATE WITH HOW THE CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY IS IMPACTING ON OUR SECTOR AT www.nalc.gov.uk

NALC legal advice on holding meetings remotely

NALC's Legal Team has issued advice on how councils can hold meetings without the council physically gathering.

BHIB

BHIB Councils Insurance has developed cybersecurity tips to help keep local councils and their staff to stay secure and keep online data safe. As well as advice on expectations of local councils regarding playgrounds and outdoor fitness equipment.

Legal briefing

NALC has published a legal briefing, which gives guidance on the implications for local councils of the Local Government and Police and Crime Commissioner (Coronavirus) (Postponement of Elections and Referendums) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020. This includes commentary on the prohibition on holding elections to fill casual vacancies until 6 May 2021.

Virtual meeting demonstration

Northamptonshire County Association of Local Councils has created a video to demonstrate what a virtual meeting of (the fictional) Great Pipping Parish Council would look like in Zoom. It is a training video designed to show how a chairman would deal with councillors joining by computer and phone, declarations of interest, public participation and confidential items where members of the public and press are excluded.

Zoom

If you do choose to use Zoom, there is a range of free information and training to help people use the platform which is definitely worth having a look at to help get you started. A recent update on the Zoom blog has been guidance on hosting public meetings including how to keep uninvited guests out of your meeting.

On 26 March, the government produced information on how to help people safely
Public Health England has also produced a range of material to support the Stay Home, Save Lives' campaign which is free to download and use
NHS England has launched a national volunteer initiative which you can share with your residents
The British Red Cross also has a number of volunteer schemes to help communities in emergency situations

WORKING FROM HOME

Our colleagues at Parkinson Associates have produced a fact sheet for those who may have to work from home during the present crisis. It can be accessed here

CORONA VIRUS

If the Government declares an emergency and control measures are put in place limiting public gatherings, the problem will arise of how councils can meet to make decisions. We await advice from NALC on this but many councils already have committees, and their powers could be reviewed and extended to include more in the way of agreeing expenditure. This is a decision which the council has to make, a committee cannot extend its own powers. Additionally councils are reminded that the Local Government Act 1972, section 101, allows a council to devolve most decision-making to the Clerk. Councils may wish to consider putting such a resolution in place for the duration of any emergency, should one be declared”.

Clearly there are some decisions which can only be made by council e.g. agreeing the year-end accounts; agreeing the AGAR; applying for borrowing. We await guidance from Government on how such matters can be handled.

Councils will hold their annual council meetings in May, if these meetings cannot go ahead please remember that the current Chairman of the Council remains in that position until a new Chairman is elected.

In the absence of a directive from Government, those councils with offices that are accessible by the public should consider if public access should remain in place.

As regards ERNLLCA, all planned training events have been cancelled. This will be kept under review but it seems unlikely that any training will be delivered for some time to come. Our office is located in a public building and we have not been given any information about closure however we may have to stagger when staff are in the office to minimise contact between the team. Obviously we will not be able to attend any meetings for the foreseeable future nor will we be able to receive visitors. It is unlikely that the district committee meetings will go ahead.

NALC has set up a Coronavirus page on its website www.nalc.gov.uk/coronavirus

Borrowing by parish and town councils

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has issued updated information and guidance on borrowing by councils. Please refer to the Members page to access this information.

Councils which are not members of ERNLLCA should contact the Association at enquiries@ernllca.info if they wish to borrow.

About Us

The East Riding and Northern Lincolnshire Local Councils Association, known as ERNLLCA, is an independent body which supports parish and town councils in the North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. There is an equivalent organisation for each “shire county” area or equivalent in the country and all of these bodies, which are known as County Associations, join together as members of the National Association of Local Councils, or as it is more commonly known, NALC.

ERNLLCA (and its predecessor organisation, the Humberside Association of Parish and Town Councils) has been serving parish and town councils, and parish meetings, since 1974. In the years since there have been many changes to local government and the expectations placed on our tier of local government has grown and grown. ERNLLCA is a member organisation and its Officers cannot advise members of the public on matters relating to specific parish and town councils. If you have a query about an individual parish or town council you should contact the relevant Clerk or Chairman.

ERNLLCA is funded wholly by its members and does not receive any support from any of Principal Authorities or from the Government and exists purely for the benefit of its member parish and town councils. It works closely with Principal Authorities, Government Departments, Professional Bodies, Government Agencies and the Voluntary Sector to promote and support the work of member councils.

ERNLLCA operates a bottom-up approach to its governance. All member councils have the opportunity to meet 3 times a year through a system of District Committees. Each council may send any number of representatives to these meetings but only two may vote. Each District Committee elects representatives to serve on ERNLLCA’s Executive Committee and the Executive Committee elects a delegate to the meetings of the National Association of Local Councils. The current membership of the Executive Committee can be viewed in the Governance section of the members' pages.