NORFOLK PTS

Provided online by the Met Office

Two-part course for Councillors: 23 & 30 April 7-9 pm

Understanding how Parish and Town Councils work and your role and responsibilities is not easy, particularly if you are new to local government. This induction course explains the legal framework giving you the confidence to take a full part in your Council and make a difference in your local area.

If you've been a councillor for a while and feel you could benefit from an update on your role, responsibilities and what's new in local government, this course is for you (even if you didn't attend our induction course first). This councillor refresher course explores key topics in detail to help you feel more confident in your role. 

Town and Parish Councils are subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and anyone can make a request. Most are straightforward but occasionally they prove to be complex and time consuming to answer. 

Although the course is primarily aimed at clerks, it will also benefit interested councillors, especially those on a relevant committee.

Full day course for Councillors

Understanding how Parish and Town Councils work and your role and responsibilities is not easy, particularly if you are new to local government. This induction course explains the legal framework giving you the confidence to take a full part in your Council and make a difference in your local area. 

Two-part course for Councillors: 15 & 22 May 7-9 pm  

Understanding how Parish and Town Councils work and your role and responsibilities is not easy, particularly if you are new to local government. This induction course explains the legal framework giving you the confidence to take a full part in your Council and make a difference in your local area. 

The effective processing of personal data at town and parish council level is key to efficient handling of subject access requests, among other things.

This  2-hour online course covers the essential elements of data protection legislation, featuring the GDPR. It will also tell you what you need to do to create a credible privacy framework, and how to deal with enquiries. 

Could your agendas or minutes benefit from a refresh? Do you always know what to include or what to leave out? How about meetings, when should you chip in and where does your involvement end? This course will help with all of these and more.

When elected or co-opted every councillor signs up to their council's Code of Conduct but do they then really undertand what this means? 

This course takes you through when the code applies, councillor obligations and avoiding conflicts of interest.

You've been to many meetings in your working life but how are local council meetings different?  Our course provides you with the techniques to structure council meetings professionally and get the best contributions from the meeting participants.

Parish Online is an essential tool for simply viewing and printing maps, all the way to storing asset registers, producing neighbourhood plans and engaging with the public. This makes councils more efficient and resilient, ultimately resulting in better services for the public.

Do you currently use Parish Online Mapping but don't fully understand it or have questions that you would like to ask? Have you thought about signing up but would like to know more before committing? Would you like to know more about how it works and what it can do? Then, this session is for you.

Two part course taking place on 1 and 8 July online

You've been to many meetings in your working life but how are local council meetings different?  Our course provides you with the techniques to structure council meetings professionally and get the best contributions from the meeting participants.

You'll be taken step-by-step through the process of preparing a Neighbourhood Plan for your parish. We'll look at the advantages of having a Neighbourhood Plan, the stages for producing a plan, and the time and resource commitment required.  This course includes a case study example of a Norfolk village Neighbourhood Plan – what has worked and what hasn’t.

Understanding how the planning system operates and routinely considering planning applications are key responsibilities of parish and town councils.  We look at the process from both the parish/town council and district/borough council perspective and how to manage the expectations of the public who are likely to attend our meetings.

Most Parish and Town Councils will have at least one or two projects they would like to see come to life in their parish, but they don’t have the funds to make them happen.  Laura has a track record in securing external funding for community projects and understands what funders are looking for.  This course will run through the lifecycle of a typical project from the idea phase to project opening and evaluation.

Do you want to learn more about the Internal Auditor Role? Would you like to gain the confidence to become an Internal Auditor? Then this course is for you.

Every local council must have an internal auditor: someone who is independent of the management of the council and competent to carry out the role.  This role has become significantly more important for ‘exempt’ councils: those with a turnover under £25,000. 

Identifying risk and establishing ways of reducing risk is a key part of our governance and a legal requirement.  The session will cover the detail of a risk management policy to take account of the range of risks councils face, from public money to council activities, insurance, health and safety, and financial risks. There is an overview of policies and regulations which should be in place to support risk management.