News

The National Association of Local Council's All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Local Democracy met on 18 November 2015 and held an evidence session on devolution where it agreed that far more power, services and assets should be devolved to parishes as part of the government’s devolution agenda.

Currently the post office network is undergoing its biggest restructuring in decades. The aim of this transformation programme is to maintain the size of a network of approximately 11,500 branches and ensure it is financially sustainable for the future by converting around three quarters of the network to new operating models.

NALC Policy Committee met on 3 November 2015 and urged the Chancellor to continue to exempt parish councils from referendum principles in his Autumn Statement and Spending Review on 25 November 2015.

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has demanded that Government’s devolution plans must include communities, neighbourhoods and parishes through the publication of its Devo Local paper.

DCLG has recently published a short, informative paper promoting the involvement of parish councils in Devolution Deals.

The NALC Sustainable Communities Board met on 11 September and Cllr Derek Liddell was re-elected as Board Chairman for 2015-16. The Board agreed to re-submit the Burton on the Wolds (Leics.) Parish Council proposal to DCLG on asking for non-councillors to have voting rights on Neighbourhood Planning Committees (as they currently do for tourism, land, festival and harbour management committees) – under the Parish and Community Councils (Committees) Regulations, 1990.