LALC eNews 6th February 2026

If any Clerks want to join the Clerks’ eGroup, or any councillors want to join the Councillor eGroup, contact enquiries@lalc.co.uk.

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This fortnightly newsletter is provided to member councils through the clerk and chair and should be circulated to all councillors. This eNews can also be found on the LALC website under News (LALC News). Other important information which comes up in between eNews publication dates is also shared on the website under News (Our Blog).

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Training courses are available to book via the portal (login required)

The Training Bulletin is issued monthly, and courses are available to book via the portal. If there is any specific training which you feel would be valuable, and we don’t currently offer it, please let us know and we will investigate. The Training Bulletin can be found on the LALC website.

Clerks – when booking training for your councillors, please ensure that their email address is correct. If not, they will not receive the booking confirmation or any joining instructions. If you have set up your councillors on the LALC portal, you will be able to select their correct email address from a drop-down list when booking the training.

If you update your council email and are already booked on training, please let us know so that we can update your booking to ensure you receive the automatic reminders.

If one of your councillors resigns, and they were booked on LALC training, please cancel their place, so that others can book on. Failure to do so may not only deprive other councils from attending but could result in a non-attendance charge (see below).

Please note our training cancellation policy:

For part day courses – please ensure we receive cancellations at least 48 hours in advance

For full day events – please ensure we receive cancellations at least 5 working days in advance, as we need to pre-order and pay for lunches

Due to persistent non-attendance at booked events, it is unfortunate that LALC have had to amend the way we impose our cancellation fees. All members are charged 50% of the training cost when insufficient notice is received (as above) for non-attendance at training events. No shows will be charged at 100% of the course fee. All charges are regardless of whether the council is a member of the ATS or not.

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Current vacancies

Position

Closing date

Brookenby Parish Council

Clerk/RFO

No closing date

Toft Newton Parish Council

Clerk/RFO

No closing date

Cadney cum Howsham Parish Council (North Lincs)

Clerk/RFO

No closing date

Coningsby Town Council

Assistant Clerk

28^th February 2026

Great Coates Village Council

Clerk/RFO

20^th February 2026

Branston & Mere Parish Council

RFO

28^th February 2026

Vacancy advertising

LALC can advertise your vacancy on our website and in the fortnightly eNews. This is a free service. If you do not have a pre-prepared advert to send us, please complete our Vacancy Template, which can be found in the Members Portal under Document Templates.

We also offer a paid advertising service, which ensures that your advert also appears on Lincolnshire County Council’s website, Facebook, and LinkedIn (in addition to the LALC website and eNews). The current fee for this is £80. Please complete the Vacancy Template (as above), ensuring that all requested information is completed, and then contact us at enquiries@lalc.co.uk. You will be invoiced for this service.

Please note that Lincolnshire County Council require a closing date on their advert, as well as salary information (these are mandatory fields). LCC will remove your advert once the closing date has passed, so please consider the date carefully as you will have to pay again to re-advertise if your vacancy hasn’t been filled by then.

We recommend all councils advertise their vacancy, job details, method of application and up to date contact details on their own website too.

Please let us know when the vacancy has been filled, so that we can remove it from our website/eNews. If your vacancy has not yet been filled and you are continuing to advertise, please let us know of any revised closing date. If you no longer specify a closing date, please let us know so that we can update the vacancy adverts.

The NALC Recruitment Manual (developed as part of the Civility & Respect project) is now available via the portal. Go into Knowledgebase and click on 'Recruitment Manual' in the 'Employment' menu area.

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Lincolnshire Resilience Forum: Community Resilience Cluster Session

Lincolnshire Resilience Forum have arranged a Community Resilience Cluster Session at Tattershall Village Hall on 21st April 2026.

What can you expect?

You will be able to find out exactly what community resilience is, how your community can become more resilient, what your role as a community group would be during an incident, as well as guidance to starting up a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) in your area and creating a community emergency plan (CEP).

You will also be able to meet other like-minded potential CERTs from other Parishes, maybe even your neighbouring Parish!

The details for the cluster session are as follows:

Tattershall Village Hall

Tuesday, 21st April 2026

17:30 - 19:30

Please note this is not a drop-in session.

If this sounds like something you would be interested in attending, please email lincsep@lincolnshire.gov.uk with the name of your Parish along with the names of those attending in your party. Please use LRF Cluster Session as the subject line.

We will be putting on other cluster sessions around the County throughout the year so if you are unable to attend this one, please let us know and we will put your name down for the next one.

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NALC Legal Bulletin

The year ahead

We are looking ahead to a year of new and anticipated legislation. Since the last legal bulletin, the Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent in December 2025. Our HR partner WorkNest will review and update the HR templates as and when the rights given come into force. We expect that to happen over the next two years.

Can a council chair override a request for voting to be recorded?

We were asked about a scenario where a council chair overrode a councillor's request for votes to be recorded and proposed a motion not to permit it, which was passed. Our advice was that there is no power to do this. The law gives a statutory right for a councillor(s) to request that votes be recorded. Paragraph 13 (2) of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972 provides that on the requisition of any member of the council, the voting on any question shall be recorded to show whether each member present and voting gave his vote for or against that question. The council chair or indeed a council's standing orders cannot override the right.

Can a committee accept apologies and approve reasons for absence from a councillor who is not a member of the committee?

We were asked to consider a councillor's qualifying attendance for Section 85 of the Local Government Act 1972. The council asked us if apologies approved at a committee of which the councillor was not a member would count. Our view was no. It is for the logical reason that there is no absence to be approved from a committee if a councillor is not a member of the committee.

Can a parish or town council use the general power of competence to pay allowances to co-opted members?

A council asked us if it could use the general power of competence to pay a parish basic allowance to co-opted members. Our answer was no. Regulation 25 of the Local Authorities' Members' Allowances (England) Regulations 2003 provides that a local council can pay a parish basic allowance (PBA) for each year to its chair only or to each of its members. Regulation 25 (10) says that for this regulation, any reference to a member is a reference to an elected member of a parish or town council. Section 2 of the Localism Act 2011 says that the use of the general power is subject to pre-commencement limitations or post-commencement limitations expressly applied. In our view, Regulation 25 (10) does amount to such an express limitation. Our advice note contains our advice on councillors' allowances.

Can councils carry out maintenance on land not owned by the council?

We are often asked if parish or town councils can carry out works (e.g. to trees or footpaths) on land they do not own or where there is no known owner. The council may have the power to do the works (e.g. general power of competence). Still, the question is often whether it is appropriate to do so. Would the council be holding itself out to take on responsibility generally and be held liable for any issues that arise as a result of repairs or non-repairs? We advise councils in such cases to first speak with their insurers to check if works are within the scope of their insurance policies. Another solution may be funding other reputable local bodies to carry out the works.

The Charity Commission letter

Legal requests involving charities are common, and often when they come to us, it is because there is a problem that has arisen because of blurred lines between council and charity, or a council not appreciating the limited role of the custodian trustee. Issues also arise when a council is a landowner of charity land subject to a lease. Our role is limited, as reflected in our advice note on basic charity law. Often, a council will need advice as a charity rather than a council. We want to highlight some of the points made in the letter that they had sent to a council, where the council had not sufficiently distinguished between council and charity, and had treated the charity land as council land. The Charity Commission gave the following advice for trustees.

When making significant decisions for the charity, trustees must:

Act within their powers.

Act in good faith and only in the interests of the charity.

Make sure they are sufficiently informed.

Take into account all relevant factors and ignore any irrelevant factors.

Manage conflicts of interest.

Make decisions that are within the range of decisions that a reasonable trustee body could make.

Legal request changes

We mentioned at a recent county association meeting that we would be updating our process for requesting legal advice. When you now submit a request, we will log it, allocate it and then revert with the case reference and who will be dealing with the request. The acknowledgement memo we previously sent to you is now contained on our website, and that includes our requirement to publish professional details, such as complaints and details of our insurance cover.

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to us in December to confirm that the Act received Royal Assent last month. The Act makes reforms to compulsory purchase powers, processes and compensation in England and Wales, with sections coming into force over the next few months. Given the nature of the subject, we envisage limited application to our sector. We will monitor and assess if there is any guidance we can provide.

Recent team activity

Our legal manager and senior solicitor, Jane Moore, delivered a legal update for the Surrey Association of Local Councils on 3 December 2025. Jane also attended the Lawyers in Local Government Conference on 28 November 2025, which is a valued partner, and we appreciate the opportunity to promote parish and town councils at their events. Our solicitor, Gary Barker, also delivered a legal update for the Oxfordshire Association of Local Councils on 11 November 2025.

Disclaimer: Information and commentary on the law contained in this bulletin are provided free of charge for information purposes only. Whilst every reasonable effort is made to make the information and commentary accurate and up to date, no responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by any member of NALC's legal team. The information and commentary do not, and are not intended to, amount to legal advice to any person on a specific case or matter. You are strongly advised to obtain specific advice about your case or matter and not to rely on the information or comments in this email.

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NALC publishes its quarterly activity report

NALC have published our quarterly activity report covering October to December 2025. The quarterly activity report details progress in delivering our strategic plan, including information on critical internal issues, parliamentary and government affairs work, events, finances, media coverage, publications and legal advice. It features updates from across all our work under different themed topics.

Some key highlights:

1,290 people attended our events in the last quarter.

We called on the government to provide long-term, realistic funding to safeguard the future of the Post Office network.

We urged the government to act quickly in legislating for the reforms in its response to the consultation on standards and conduct in local government.

We introduced a new IT Policy, designed to help parish and town councils meet the requirements set out in paragraph 1.54 of the proper practices.
We launched a major new resource to help parish and town councils build confidence in data protection and a brand-new Assertion 10 Hub, providing parish and town councils with a comprehensive collection of tools, guidance and policies to help strengthen governance and compliance with the new Assertion 10.

13 parish and town councils were accredited under the Local Council Award Scheme (3 Gold, 6 Silver and 4 Bronze).

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Chalk Streams in Lincolnshire – 10-year plan launched

More rare than rain forests, our important natural waterways are under fresh focus with a county-wide discover, restore and enhance strategy.

Chalk streams are considered to be some of the rarest and most ecologically significant habitats on Earth. Fed by pure groundwater that has been filtered through natural chalk aquifers, they have distinct characteristics that support high biodiversity. They are important and need protecting.

In Lincolnshire we have around 11% of England’s chalk streams across the Lincolnshire Wolds which go on to flow out to the surrounding county coastline. That works out to about 140 miles of one of the most scarce habitats for wildlife on the planet, right on our doorstep.

An important part of the success of these streams is the Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Project, a partnership between fourteen organisations which began in 2003 and has, over the last 20 years, spent more than £4.5m to benefit the streams and the wildlife that uses them.

Read the full LCC News article.

Find out more about Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Project.

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Have Your Say: National Highways & Transport (NHT) Survey

Following on from last year, LCC have again commissioned the National Highways & Transport (NHT) surveys for Councillors and Town and Parish Councils, to ensure we directly capture your feedback on Highways and Transport services in your area. This is in addition to the annual public survey which is sent to a sample of approximately 3,000 Lincolnshire residents.

Our aim is to ensure we are delivering as much as we can with the available funding, spending it as efficiently and as fairly as possible across the county. The responses submitted previously have provided us with valuable insights that help us achieve this, and we would like to build on that again this year. Your responses are hugely important and help us to understand the areas where the highways service is performing well, and any areas that could be improved.

You have until Saturday, 28th of February to complete the survey.

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NALC: Peers push for stronger protections for parish and town councils

Peers in the House of Lords raised strong concerns about whether the government's English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill would genuinely pass power down to parish and town councils. The first day of the Grand Committee Stage in the House of Lords focused on Part 1 of the Bill, which establishes new strategic authorities. It prompted a series of amendments aimed at clarifying the Bill's intent and protecting the role of England's most local tier of government.

Read more in NALC News (no login required).

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SLCC: Grey Squirrel Policy Statement

The government has published a policy statement on grey squirrels in England. The statement sets out the actions the government will take over the next five years to reduce the impact of grey squirrels on the red squirrel population and on trees and woodlands. It tackles the economic and environmental threat, protecting much-loved woodlands and vital rural economies.

Access the policy statement.

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SLCC - Consultation: National Planning Policy Framework – Proposed Reforms and Other Changes to the Planning System

The government is seeking views on a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other changes to the planning system.

The government’s attention has been drawn to an error in the consultation document regarding policy TC4 in the NPPF. On page 56 of the consultation document the final paragraph regarding TC4 incorrectly states – ‘we are not proposing that a failure against the test is regarded as an automatic basis for refusing planning permission’. This paragraph has subsequently been updated as of 29 January 2026 to rectify this error. This change only affects the consultation document and not the draft NPPF text. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has contacted those who have submitted a response, alerting them to the error and giving them the opportunity to submit a revised response.

Annex B of the consultation document asks questions about standardised inputs in viability assessment. Question 202a refers to ‘market-led development’, which has been clarified to refer to ‘market for sale housing’. On page 106 regarding transitional arrangements, MHCLG has removed the sentence ‘Therefore, the draft Framework sets out that due weight should be given to development plan policies relative to the consistency with the Framework’ for clarity.

MHCLG has also updated the ‘Questions on Proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and other changes to the planning system’ document to include the correct sub-questions for questions 27, 28, 54, 169, and 201 as included in the consultation document.

Respond to the consultation here. Please note this consultation closes at 11:45pm on 10 March 2026.

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SLCC: Policy Statement: A Roadmap for Section 106 delivery in England

The government has a clear manifesto commitment to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

As part of this commitment, it has published a roadmap setting out the steps it will take to lay the foundations for a simpler, more transparent, and more resilient S106 system, and to deal with the legacy problem of existing unsold and uncontracted S106 units.

You can access the full policy statement here.

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Survey Participation Request: A Grave Concern – Local Councils and Their Duty to Maintain Closed Churchyards

SLCC has been asked to share a survey on behalf of Yvonne Colverson, who is currently undertaking the MA in Public Leadership qualification with De Montfort University.

The survey investigates how the duty to maintain closed churchyards impacts on town and parish councils and the communities they serve.

There are no risks involved in taking part in this study and your data will remain anonymous in all published work resulting from the study. Participation is voluntary and you may withdraw at any time by exiting the study; if you do so before submitting your answers, your data will not be saved.

Access the survey here.

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SLCC: Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales: Access and Fairness

The government has added its response to the consultation on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), which covered a number of proposals relating to pension benefits for scheme members.

As part of its response, the government has made clear that it ‘believes that the LGPS is a good pension scheme which should be available to all those who provide the services for which local government is responsible.’

Read their full response here.

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SLCC: Strengthening Your Council’s Cybersecurity: Free Workshops Available

An update from the Parish Council Domains Helper Service Team, Government Digital Service

The Parish Council Domain Helper Service is excited to announce that we are offering free online workshops to help you improve your council’s cybersecurity.

Following the success of our cybersecurity presentation at SLCC’s National Conference, we have adapted the content into an online virtual workshop to help more councils. Our workshops will help you understand how cybersecurity relates to your day-to-day work and give you some easy-to-implement actions you can take back to your council. This includes:

how to use strong passwords and a password manager

how to protect your council from malware

how to back-up your data

how to protect yourself against phishing scams

Still unsure if attending our cybersecurity workshop is right for you? Here are some key reasons why it’s worth your time:

Every organisation with digital assets is a potential target for cyber crimes, regardless of size

Many small organisations, including councils, ask ‘Why would cyber criminals attack us?’ This reflects the common misconception that only large organisations with billions of pounds are at risk of a cyber attack. In reality, cyber criminals are opportunistic and seek to exploit vulnerabilities across organisations of all sizes.

Protect your council’s reputation

Cybersecurity does not just ensure services are kept up and running, it is also vital to ensure the public trusts councils with their information. Cyber attacks can have serious consequences for a council’s reputation, which is why taking proactive steps to strengthen cybersecurity matters. Our workshops will help you build confidence by providing a starting point and practical, achievable actions.

Next steps:

Complete the sign-up form up to attend one of our free workshops.
Email parish.helper@domains.gov.uk if you have any questions about the workshops.

You can find the latest information on the Parish Council Domains Helper Service here.

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LCC Project Groundwater: New river alarms for hyper-local flooding notifications

As part of Project Groundwater Greater Lincolnshire, special measuring devices are being installed in streams and rivers across 64 Lincolnshire towns and villages that are at risk of flooding.

Telemetry devices are now installed in: Alford, Bardney, Barlings, Billingborough, Blyton, Boston, Bourne, Brant Broughton, Burgh Le Marsh, Caistor, Chapel St Leonards, Cherry Willingham, Cranwell, Digby, Dunston, Fiskerton, Folkingham, Gainsborough, Grantham, Great Steeping, Greatford, Halton Holegate, Heighington, Heydour, Holbeach, Little Bytham, Horncastle, Hough on the Hill, Ingoldmells, Kirkby on Bain, Leasingham, Little Pointon, Long Bennington, Louth, Mareham Le Fen, Market Rasen, Middle Rasen, Minting, Nettleham, Newton near Haceby, North Scarle, Pickworth, Pinchbeck, Pointon, Ruskington, Saxilby, Market Deeping, Scotter, Sedgebrook, Sleaford, Stamford, Stickford, Sturton by Stow, Surfleet, Swaton, Tallington, Tattersall, Thorpe St Peter, Timberland, Waddington, Wainfleet All Saints, Welbourn, Woodhall Spa, Wyberton.

The telemetry devices monitor water levels and send updates every 15 minutes to an online dashboard. If water rises to certain levels, the system raises the alarm by text or email to town and parish leaders and emergency teams.