Committee Meeting Training (Apr)

This new course has been developed by Jake Atkinson.  Jake managed committees at a District council before he took over as Chief Executive at Leicestershire and Rutland ALC, and knows the system inside out, including the challenges they present to parish and town councils.

Does your council spend unnecessary time “ratifying” and discussing decisions already made by its committees? Is there a lack of clarity as to what powers each of your committees have been delegated (e.g., have decisions been made which council feel weren’t within the committee’s remit), are some of your committees run behind closed doors?  Can neighbourhood plan steering groups spend money?  Do you allow councillors not on a specific committee to remain in the room when you remove the public for a confidential item?  Do you know that the law differs between committees and sub-committees (i.e. different rules apply)?  Do your committees know that they cannot delegate to individual committee members, e.g. to investigate a grievance, or decide on what equipment to purchase to meet council needs?  All these areas, and more, will be covered to allow you to ensure your committee decisions and operation are proper and lawful.

In our experience, councils find council meetings much easier to run correctly, and understand the rules and law that apply, when compared to committee meetings.  Many critical decisions are made at committee level, especially when it comes to staffing, and the risks of decisions being legally challenged and voided due to errors at committee level are not only very real, but also are high impact in terms of getting it wrong.  For example, would your council be comfortable with a staffing committee having the ability to dismiss the clerk without reference to a council meeting, potentially based on the votes of as few as 3 or 4 councillors?

We would suggest that this course is essential for not only committee chairs, but also clerks, and the chairman of council.

Cost is £45pp, once have registered, you should recive an email confirmation, check your junk mail. An invoice will be generated and sent to the email address we have on file, usually the clerk's.