The latest edition of the Practitioners’ Guide to the Accounts and Audit Regulations (2014 Edition) is now available on both the NALC (http://www.nalc.gov.uk/About_NALC/Governance_and_Accountability_for_Local_Councils.aspx ) and SLCC websites. The principal changes since the previous edition are:
1. Appendix 10
A detailed framework in order to achieve the safeguarding of public money. This appendix is an essential consequence (as is the recent publication of new Model Financial Regulations) on the repeal of Section 150 (5) of the Local Government Act 1972 (the “two signature rule”).
2. Investments
The rules setting out the distinction between Revenue and Capital investments have been re-written and simplified. In particular paragraph 2.33 now refers only to “interest bearing savings accounts”, omitting reference to banks and building societies. This brings the guidance into line with the Capital Finance Regulations 2003 . It is now clear that all such investments of under 12 months maturity are to be considered Revenue investments. By contrast any investment exceeding 12 months maturity of whatever nature is, by definition, a Capital investment and subject to the Capital Receipts regime upon maturity.
3. Acquired Assets
There are revised rules on the recording of “gifted assets” (i.e. those assets transferred without payment) from other authorities, developers etc. Paragraph 3.76 includes the “strong recommendation” that such assets be recorded (in the recipients’ asset register) at a nominal value of £1 each.
4. Appendix 11
The guide now incorporates a formal Declaration of No Accounts at Appendix 11 for those councils with no transactions during the year (helpfully defined as “less than £1”).
Practitioners are reminded that the Guide represents proper practices for the purposes of Local Council accounting, and are therefore required by law to comply therewith.
NALC produce 86 Legal Topic Notes which member councils can access via the NALC website. Member councils have a Username and Password to access the Member's Area where all the Legal Topic Notes can be found.
Please be aware that Legal Topic Notes are frequenly revised to reflect changes in legislation.
The revised Legal Topic Note 9E describes the outline steps in the complaints procedure that is recommended for a council and the range of remedies that may be offered if a complaint is upheld.
It also deals with data protection issues .
The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting interested parties about the remaining secondary legislation on audit provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, covering regulations regarding Smaller Authorities, Collective Procurement, Accounts and Audit regulations, and the Transparency Code for other Smaller authorities.
Section 5 of the Act enables the Secretary of State to make regulatory provision about auditing smaller authorities, the consultation questions focus on;
- enabling a person, specified by the Secretary of State, to appoint auditors to smaller authorities. This will facilitate the development of a sector-led body, as proposed by the National Association of Local Councils and the Society of Local Council Clerks; and
- enabling the creation of a less onerous framework for audit, mirroring the current “limited assurance” arrangements, in line with the smaller amounts of public money these authorities control.
The consultation document and proposed regulations include:
- Modification of the Act in relation to smaller authorities (Section 2);
- Specification of Collective Procurement body (Section 3);
- Account and Audit regulations (Section 4);
- Transparency Code for smaller bodies with an annual turnover of less than £25,000 per annum (Section 5).
DCLG and the National Association are particularly interested in your views on the consultation questions contained in Section 3 of the main consultation document (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/321749/Local_Audit_Consultation_1.pdf ) Specification of Collective Procurement Body.
NALC will be responding to this four-week consultation.
In order to help shape NALC's submission they would welcome your responses by noon on Friday 11 July, 2014 to chris.borg@nalc.gov.uk .
DCLG are encouraging nominations to be submitted for the Birthday Honours 2015 List. Honours nominations can be accepted at any time but the deadline to be included for consideration in the Birthday Honours 2015 is 4th August 2014.
The Prime Minister is asking that you seek out and recognise candidates actively involved in building a bigger, stronger society. DCLG are stressing the importance of drawing nominees from as wide a pool as possible to reflect the diversity of today's society.
More information on how to draft a citation is available here .
The letter and citation form are on the BALC website here
Exploring Finance and Funding, Openness and Transparency Issues in Our Sector
24th and 25th September 2014 - £195 (to include Dinner, Bed & Breakfast)
Holiday Inn London, Heathrow – Ariel, 118 Bath Road, Hayes, Middlesex, UB3 5AJ
The programme covers:
24th September 2014
- Framing Issues across the Sector with Q&A Dr. Jonathan Owen, CE NALC
- Localism and Local Government post-Election 2015? Daniel Goodwin, Senior Associate Fellow, Institute of Local Government, Uni of B’ham
- Openness and Transparency & Dealing with Recording in Meetings – Dealing with Regulations, Ian Davison, Hedley’s Solicitors
- Governance and Accountability (2014), A Practitioner’s Guide, Steve Parkinson, Chairman national JPAG
There will be the opportunity for informal surgeries with current proposed topics of Social Media & Marketing for Local Councils (includes a delegates ‘special offer’), and Finding Project Funding. Additionally there is the opportunity for delegate networking.
Outline Programme 25th September 2014
- Practical Sector Finance with Q&A Kevin Rose, DCK Beavers
- Crowdfunding and Community Shares: Possibilities for the Sector, Steven Lugg, Hampshire ALC
- Reflections on Finance and Governance Regulations James Kingston, DCLG
Booking details from Hampshire Association of Local Councils
LCR online has an interesting article about Bath and North East Somerset Councils attempt to help their parishes go paperless where planning applications are concerned.
Persuading town and parish councils to work electronically is still one of the main barriers to Local Planning Authorities going paperless.
While many LPAs have managed to reduce printing of planning applications submitted online via the Planning Portal to a minimum of one copy for internal reference, many are still having to print more copies to send to their parishes for consultation.
The aim of the event was to discuss the benefits and barriers of using technology to present planning application information to parishioners on-screen at local planning committee meetings.
Dunkerton Parish Council was the first BATHNES parish council to present planning application information electronically on-screen at planning committee meetings.
While this move is key to reducing costs and improving efficiency for the planning authority, Dunkerton Parish Council chairman Cllr. Martin Robinson pointed out that it is important to identify benefits for the town or parish councils.
Martin confessed to not being the most IT-literate person when he first looked into using technology at committee meetings. However, in a short time he has become very proficient in preparing the appropriate information for display and discussion.
He demonstrated how the equipment could also be used for other parish council business, such as crime prevention talks, neighbourhood planning meetings and flooding assessments. Incorporating photographs of site inspections, Google Earth views, local plan images and even video footage could further enhance the tool.
The parish council has also taken full advantage of the technology to ensure that all parish business is fully transparent by displaying all parish-meeting minutes and accounts on-screen during council meetings.
Parishes don’t like having to store past application documents – these often have to be kept in the clerk’s or other parishioner’s garage, loft or conservatory. This takes up a lot of space, causes worry about documents getting damaged/spoiled and individual files can be difficult to find as required.
Dunkerton is now paperless. The parish links to the information already stored in the BATHNES online planning application register and this removes the need to receive or store mountains of paper locally – freeing up valuable space in the conservatory.
The presentations for the event can be found here, which also demonstrates how Dunkerton Parish Council has used this media to present planning applications and enhance the information provided and also examples of early work on developing a neighbourhood plan.
Planning Portal has recently updated its best practice links guidance for local planning authorities, which may be of use for local parish and town council websites too.
The direct links are to planning and building regulations content so may help to demystify queries on these matters and can be accessed here.
A revised edition of the Practitioners' Guide is now available on line on both the NALC and SLCC websites.
This edition supersedes the 2010 edition. It should be regarded
as proper practices for local council accounting statements relating to
accounting periods beginning on or after 1st April 2014.
The main changes:
- are consequential to the repeal of Sec. 150 (5), Local Government Act 1972 and the issue of 'safeguarding public money' guidance
- update guidance on investments
- reflect changes to guidance to auditors by the Audit Commission
- reflect necessary changes to the Annual Return
- introduce the 'declaration of no accounts' to assist smaller bodies with no financial transactions
- update references to statute and links to key documents.
A major review of how future guidance will be delivered in future
is currently underway, anticipating the closure of the Audit Commission
in March 2015 and the subsequent full transfer of the Joint
Practitioners' Advisory Groups functions to the sector. JPAG (Chairman
Steve Parkinson townclerk@alton.gov.uk) would appreciate practitioners views.
The issue of the acceptability of the electronic issuing of agendas for parish and town council meetings looks set to finally be legally resolved.
Stephen Williams MP, Minister for Communities and Local Government, announced that he has accepted a proposal from Tenterton Town and Bleadon Parish Councils submitted under the Sustainable Communities Act (barrier busting) provisions relating to electronic dispatch of agendas.
He said on 14th May, "I am pleased to be able to confirm that this Department will soon be introducing secondary legislation that will allow all councils to circulate agendas electronically where the recipient has given permission for this. My officials recently shared draft legislation on this with the sector. We will be taking the legislation forward once we have considered the technical comments we received.
I am pleased that we have been able to accept (this) proposal, which was the first to be submitted by a parish council under the Act. These changes will make a significant improvement to the administration of town and parish councils."
Dave Briggs, the SLCC course tutor for social media, has written a comprehensive guide to the use of various social media by parish and community councils. The Advice Notes can be found in the Advice Library of the SLCC website under Constitution, Procedures etc/ Publicity and Social Media.
BALC encourages clerks to be members of SLCC, membership opens up access to conferences, advice and support which are all helpful to the professional development of your clerk.
There are separate guides on email newsletters, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr and blogging.
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The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is proposing an amended process for granting access rights:
- to grant underground access rights to companies extracting petroleum or geothermal energy in land at least 300 metres below the surface
- for people living above any underground drilling to receive some kind of payment in return for access. The shale and geo-thermal industries have put forward a voluntary payment system involving a one-off payment of £20,000 for each lateral well. The payment to be made to a relevant community body, not split between landowners.
- for a public notification system under which the company would outline matters such as the area of land, details of the payment made in return for access.
The consultation is here and a simple explanatory guide to Underground Access on the DECC website is here
NALC is obviously keen that parish councils should be designated as the relevant community body to receive the one off payment and that town and parish councils should be consulted (notified) where underground drilling applications are submitted. The NALC consultation briefing is on this website under NALC briefings, policy consultations.
Responses to be made before 8th August to chris.borg@nalc.gov.uk
