Unfortunately following advice from the Babergh/Mid Suffolk communications team, as a result of the pre-election period, the team are unable to present all of the work they have been involved in delivering over the past year or plans for investment next year. They sent their apologies and we hope to include them in a future forum.
We then went onto watch a presentation from Jen Burlingham who provided details of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for Norfolk and Suffolk. For parishes who were unable to attend a recording of this guest speaker is available below. This recording is taken from another area forum, there were some technical issues with the slides at the Mid Suffolk session so we have shared a complete uninterrupted video.
Links related to LNRS are:
Website: Norfolk and Suffolk Nature Recovery Partnership (nsnrp.org)
Get involved: Get Involved with the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (nsnrp.org)
Suffolk Specific Surveys (open until 14th July): Suffolk Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) Public Survey (arcgis.com)
Suffolk LNRS Land Management Survey (arcgis.com)
Attendance stats
Discussion topic - accessing the member portal
SALC provided a brief update on the option available now for councillors to access the member portal demonstrating where information and guidance was on the SALC website alongside the benefits of this. SALC Portal Roles - information for members | SALC WebsiteSALC Constitution review
SALC gave an overview of the the proposed changes proposed to the SALC Constitution which will be formally considered at the AGM taking place on 1st July. Those present were given the opportunity to ask any questions and also to note how to find out full details including reasoning for the change - SALC Annual General Meeting 2024 | SALC Website.
SALC update
Planning webinars are taking place throughout June and also available to buy as a catch-up recording for the same price per council of £35. TRAINER - planning webinars | SALC WebsiteWe are launching a suite of digital training webinars covering not only the basics of Office 365 but also some deep dive sessions following our pilot last year.
Working with the Parish Council Domain Helper Service, we are pleased that a number of Suffolk councils are attending briefing sessions to find out more about moving to a .gov.uk domain and email addresses. INFORMATION PAGE - .gov.uk domains | SALC Website
Following the announcement of the general election we have provided councils with some general information in recent newsletters about publicity during the campaign. General election and pre-election period | SALC Website
As we are in the middle of the audit season councils are reminded to ensure that recommendations coming out of internal audit reports are considered as well as highlighting areas of good practice. INFORMATION PAGE - preparing for audit 2024 | SALC Website
May saw the publication of new model Financial Regulations. These are a complete re-write and we have given parishes a broad outline of some of the major changes which will update practices in a number of areas including internet banking, procurement and delegation. Model Financial Regulations | SALC Website
The SALC website now has a number of open information pages covering planning, preparing for audit and more recently managing payroll. The SALC payroll service is now used by almost 200 councils across Suffolk and following a re-structure the team now has the benefit of a professional payroll officer which is resulting in us being able to provide not only an enhanced service for a wealth of information for those parishes who manage PAYE themselves. guidance on payroll | SALC Website
SALC are also about to recruit new resources to support our ambitions to enable ongoing improvement across the sector in Suffolk.