Home Office consultation light touch authorisation for groups to sell alcohol

The Home Office is consulting from 11th November to 9th December 2014 on a relaxation for community groups and small businesses selling or giving away small amounts of alcohol as part of a wider service.

The consultation is here 
It is called Consultation: The Community and Ancillary Sellers Notice

This is potentially important for community groups, and possibly parish councils, that want to sell alcohol at an event for example.

A public consultation on alcohol, undertaken in 2012, asked for feedback on two measures. These were: a lighter touch Temporary Event Notice (TEN) with more local discretion for community groups, and a new authorisation to reduce burdens on ancillary sellers of alcohol. In response to the consultation, the Government announced its intention to create a new authorisation called the Community and Ancillary sellers Notice (CAN) to provide a light touch authorisation for both these groups.The CAN is intended to benefit providers of bed and breakfast or other similar overnight accommodation who may wish to offer overnight guests a bottle of wine in their room and community groups putting on small community events who wish to sell an alcoholic drink to those attending the event. 

The Consultation is a short document which asks for responses to 7 questions only three of which relate to Community groups.If you run events, or want to run events, but have been put off you may want to respond to this consultation.

If your council is affected by the reduction in Council Tax Support Grant - protest!

In 2013/14 and 2014/15 DCLG has paid Billing Authorities a combined total for each financial year of £3.3 billion to officially pass on to parish councils in their areas to minimise the impact of the reduction in  revenue following the diminution of average council tax bases in parished areas. In 2014/15 most Billing Authorities passed on the Localisation of Council Tax Support Scheme (LCTSS) mitigation grant to parishes in their areas, but 15 did not.

NALC lobbied the Government very hard to ensure that it put pressure on Billing Authorities to pass on to all parishes in their areas the maximum amount of LCTSS mitigation grant in 2015/16.

Thus the impact of the average 10% reduction to parish council tax bases over the last two financial years has been minimised so that services can continue as seamlessly as possible in parished areas.

Despite uncertainty as to how much capital funding the current Coalition Government is referring on to Billing Authorities in 2015/16 due to the intervening General Election, the National and County Associations will continue to lobby Government as hard as they possibly can to ensure that maximum LCTSS funding is passed on to Billing Authorities and that the Government communicates its expectation that the monies should be passed on to parish councils in their areas. NALC will know the Government's intentions by the Local Government Finance Settlement in December, 2014 and the sector will be advised accordingly.

 If your council feels sufficiently strongly that your unitary authority is not passing on the support grant then you may wish to send your comments directly to DCLG here or lobby your own MP:

Bracknell Dr Phillip Lee
Maidenhead Theresa May
Newbury Richard Benyon
Reading East Rob Wilson
Reading West Alok Sharma
Slough Fiona Mactaggart
Windsor Adam Afriyie
Wokingham John Redwood

Job advert Whitchurch Town Council, Hampshire

Whitchurch Town Council, Hampshire is advertising for a new Clerk/RFO. It is a full time job. 

Applications have to be in by 12th December. 

More information on our Vacancies page

Join the Big Energy Race!

The Big Energy Race* is a national initiative to help community groups and individuals to take control of their bills and reduce how much they are spending on energy. The Race will see numerous community groups from regions across England, Scotland and Wales register to take part by January 2015. Big Energy Race will engage 25,000 households and ultimately reach over one million people.

Community groups across the country sign up as ‘teams’, and compete with other groups around the UK in a race to accumulate points by promoting energy efficiency in the community. A ‘team’ will encourage individuals to sign up as ‘team members’ and undertake household energy challenges, such as tracking their meter readings, turning down boiler thermostats or turning off appliances. The more team members each community group recruits and the more challenges that are undertaken, the more points the whole team earns. 

Taking part in the Big Energy Race may be for a community group if any of the following apply:
•    Your group aims to help people in your local area
•    You want to help local people save on their energy bills
•    You want some ideas for activities to do in Spring 2015
•    You have some ideas for a local community energy project
•    You are planning events / activities in Spring 2015 where you could easily slot in some additional element

There are lots of weekly prizes to be won, which will be awarded to each Region of the Week, Team of the Week and Team Member of the Week during the Race. In addition, one team crowned the Big Energy Race Champions at the end will win the main prize of cash towards a community energy initiative. 

The Big Energy Race will begin in mid-January and last 11 weeks. From November 2014, community groups can visit the Big Energy Race web page and register their interest in taking part as a team.

Visit www.bigenergyrace.org to register your interest and receive further information.

*The Big Energy Race is an initiative designed by behaviour change experts Global Action Plan and is delivered in collaboration with the Energy Saving Trust, Citizens Advice Bureau and Energy UK. It is supported by major energy providers, including Npower, British Gas, EDF Energy and Green Energy.

November Employment update on Variations in contracts

Bethan's latest update for November is on Variations in Employment contracts

In the last newsletter the topic of ‘contracts of employment’ was covered.  This month we shall be looking at how an existing contract of employment can be varied, what the law permits an employer to do and what risks or potential pitfalls could cause a council problems when seeking a contractual change.

• Can a contract of employment be changed?
• What should our council do if we want to alter an employment contract?
• What might make a variation unlawful?
• How do we avoid creating an unlawful or unreasonable variation?
• What process should we adopt then?
• How do we know how much notice to give?
• Can notice be reduced?
• What if the employee refuses to change?
• What is unilateral variation?
• What records should we keep of the variation?
• What is meant by ‘Termination and Re-engagement’?
• Which laws are involved in variations of contract?

The full article is on the BALC website here

Pensions and pay update

An update from Bethan Osborne, BALC HR adviser: 

Pensions
Further to the article published in the September 2014 newsletter we have received some helpful clarification from a County Pensions administrator which helps put in context apparently contradictory advice within the ‘Being a Good Employer’ guide and rules for auto-enrolment of pensions. 

Town and parish councils can provide a scheme before the staging date but (other than where the Scheme is the LGPS) can’t contribute to it. Once Councils reach their staging date they need to make a choice as to what scheme they want to use to fulfil their responsibilities and, whatever scheme is chosen, they will be able to make an employer contribution to it. The administering authority has no responsibility to tell town and parish councils what they can and can’t do. The assumption is that it is the auditor’s role to check whether an employer is doing something they should not be doing."

Please note that ‘Being a Good Employer’ was written in 2010, before the pensions reforms and auto-enrolment were introduced to the statute book, and is to be revised by NALC and SLCC in the coming months. 

The National Pay Agreement.  The Local Government Employers and main unions who are signatories to the “Green Book” have agreed a settlement on council staff salaries to April 2016.  There are 1.5 million employees affected by this settlement.  The agreement is worth an average of 2.35% with some of the lowest paid staff receiving significantly higher pay rises.

The   NALC and SLCC  announcement is here  Councils with staff at scp5 need to take immediate action as the existing pay rate is below the new National Minimum Wage level of £6.50/hour.  There will be payments which will need to be included in the December 2014 payroll and further increases from April 2015.

Back to basics - House of Commons Library paper

For the geeks, nerds and wonks out there!

 Mark Sandford, researcher, House of Commons Library has produced a useful summary paper on recent issues facing town and parish councils.It is on the BALC website here.

I hope it is useful reading. You may find it helpful to bring to the attention of your MP. They may need reminding as we come up to elections that 16 million people are represented by town and parish councils, a number that is increasing as more people in unparished areas show an interest in having a parish council

Community Shares newsletter

If your community is interested in running a community shop or pub you need to know about Community Shares

The Community Shares Unit is supported by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) until March 2015 and is delivered in partnership by Co-operatives UK and Locality. The unit acts as a central reference point for market intelligence, providing the latest information on community share activities nationwide, as well as producing regularly-updated guidance materials.

The unit also operates as a dynamic hub for support, building relationships with networks and organisations to signpost communities, investors and other interested parties to the most appropriate forms of advice and assistance to develop new share offers and support existing ones.

Finally, it acts as a strong platform for highlighting the community share model, raising awareness of the value of the approach and facilitating peer support and networking to those already involved in community shares. 

Community Shares have produced a film on saving The Bell pub in Bath. Have a look on Youtube  or sign up for their Newsletter

Local Government Transparency Code in effect from 3rd Oct 2014

NALC have issued a legal briefing on the new code of recommended practice in relation to information that parish councils have to publish.

The briefing is here 

The Code is recommended not mandatory for parish councils with a gross annual income or expenditure exceeding £200,000. The Code replaces the previous Code issued on 1st May 2014, see other Legal briefing L01-14

Part 2 of the Code is mandatory for large councils with a gross annual income or expenditure of £6.5 million - this obviously affects very few parish councils. Part 2 requires the publication quarterly of:

• expenditure over £500
• invitations to tender for contracts for goods for services with a value over £5000
• details of contracts or purchase orders over £5000

Delivering Differently in Neighbourhoods

The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently launched Delivering Differently in Neighbourhoods, a new programme which aims to support principal authorities to redesign services to deliver at neighbourhood level, with the involvement of community organisations or parish councils.

The department is offering direct grants to around 25 local authorities in total to kick-start innovative projects in 2014/15 and 2015/16. An expert panel will provide advice and challenge, and there will be opportunities for different projects to exchange learning and network.

DCLG are interested in projects that seek to devolve greater responsibility to parish and town councils, and expect that a minimum of 3-4 projects funded in each of the two phases of the programme will involve parish and town councils in some way.

We would encourage parish councils to discuss the programme with their local authorities, who will need to submit expressions of interest to DDneighbourhoods@communities.gsi.gov.uk by 15 December.

For further information about the programme, please see the prospectus.

CiLCA review

The Certificate in Local Council Administration (CiLCA) is the qualification clerks need to be recognised as 'qualified' for the purposes of exercising the General Power of Competence and for Quality Council Status (also being reviewed for relaunch next year as Local Council Award). CiLCA is undergoing a thorough review, the national Improvement and Development Board (IDB) met recently and a number of decisions were made about the CiLCA refresh. Below is a summary of the key updates:

Understanding the changes to CiLCA
The key message is that there is one CiLCA. There are no versions or years that are better or worse – eg if you are qualified under CiLCA 3 years ago you have the same quality qualification as someone who will take it next year.

This focus helped shape a number of decisions:

• There will not be a ‘bridging module’ or anything similar to bring those with an older CiLCA qualification ‘up to date’.
• There will not be a CiLCA ‘Finance bolt-on’ or similar proposed optional additions.
• There will be no exemptions – all students will have to complete the full set of tasks
• There will not be an option to register for the refreshed CiLCA before launch. This is because the current CiLCA is still a valid and valuable qualification. Our advice is that if clerks would like to be qualified under CiLCA they should go ahead and register with the existing CiLCA rather than waiting for the refreshed version to launch

Time frames 

• We aim to launch CiLCA 2015 on 1 April. This is still tbc subject to scoping how long it would take to set up the new assessment process.
• Students currently registering for CiLCA will have 2 years to complete the current version.
•  Registrations received after 1 January 2015 will have 1 year to complete the current version.
•  Applications after 1 April (tbc) will enter CiLCA 2015.
•  CiLCA 2015 will have a one year time limit to complete after registration. With the option to extend as in the current existing arrangements.

Assessment and verification

•  The existing processes and assessment team will continue with the current CiLCA version until the final candidate has completed
•  A key difference of CiLCA 2015 will be how it is assessed and verified. The aim being a more flexible approach where candidates are more likely to pass first time
•  To reflect our commitment to this, the fee for CiLCA 2015 will include the cost of the first resit. This will be trialled for a year and then re-assessed. 

Overtime pay – Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling 4th November 2014

You may have noticed the recent ruling of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) under the Working Time Regulations (WTR) that non-guaranteed overtime should be factored in when calculating the amount of holiday pay that an employee is entitled to.

Before jumping to any conclusions the advice from Bethan Osborne, B

ALC HR advisor is to wait because the employers have 42 days in which to appeal to a higher court. The judge has given them leave to appeal, so it is highly likely that an appeal will happen.

The retrospective application of this ruling appears to be limited in scope as employees will potentially only be able to go back 3 months in their claims due to the Tribunal rules.

Bethan advises that councils keep robust records of authorised overtime from this month onwards in case the appeal sides with the Unite union and the workers. It is the employers who have staff on zero-hours contracts who treat additional hours as overtime who have the most to lose, and their employees who have the most to gain. It would also be prudent for councils to calculate how many hours of voluntary but authorised overtime are worked annually and what level of holiday leave or pay entitlement those extra hours are likely to generate onto staffing costs should the EAT judgement be confirmed.

VAT reclaim delays?

There have been a few reports of HMRC being very slow in processing VAT reclaims. NALC Financial Advisor, Derek Kemp would like to know if these are isolated instances or if there is a more wide ranging problem. Slow processing of a VAT reclaim on a large project can lead to cash flow problems for a council.

Have you experienced severe delays in reclaiming VAT from HMRC? If you have please could you let the county officer Christine Lalley know.

NALC and SLCC agree to work more closely

 

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) and the Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC) have joined forces for further mutual working and co-operation. The leadership teams of NALC and SLCC signed a joint protocol between the two bodies at the annual SLCC Conference 2014.

Both organisations agreed to work together to promote the best interests of the local councils sector and its employees and their contribution to the wellbeing of communities. These aims will be achieved through regular communication at all levels, mutual promotion and collaboration in representations to Government and other bodies when there is common interest. 

Specifically in 2015/16 our two organisations will encourage:

• participation in the new Local Council Award Scheme and
• take-up of CiLCA (This is the accredited certificate for our sector, designed to test basic levels of competence for the role of parish clerk);
• establish a Sector-Led Body to procure audit services;
• provide joint advice to councils including on part-time working hours;
• prepare new model terms and conditions of employment;
• and work towards a complementary conference programme and joint events.

Cllr Ken Browse, chairman of NALC, claimed that: “NALC and SLCC have a long and positive history of working together to promote the work of both organisations and the all important role that councillors and officers play in community leadership and representation. This protocol cements the partnership working between NALC and SLCC and long may this continue.” 

Commenting on the new protocol, SLCC’s chief executive, Howard Middleton, said: “We have always enjoyed a close working relationship with our colleagues at NALC and this builds on the previous agreement to take us forward working together in a spirit of mutual co-operation for the ultimate benefit of the communities which clerks and councils both serve.”

CEO of NALC speaks at Berkshire AGM

Berkshire Association of Local Councils held its AGM on Bonfire night at Grazeley Village Hall. The speaker was Dr. Jonathan Owen, Chief Executive Officer of NALC.

Representatives from member councils agreed at the AGM to no increase in the BALC element of the subscription and received the accounts and annual report. 

The title of Jonathan Owens talk was Improving Local Communities together! He  talked about his first 6 months in the job and the challenges facing our sector as we come up to elections next year. Jonathan outlined how NALC was seen as the 'go to' organisation by central government for the town and parish councils sector, although that didn't always mean that we were listened to!

The presentation is here. All members councils will have received a copy of the BALC Annual Report with their invitation to the AGM which includes the accounts. Please come to next years AGM which will be at the beginning of November 2015