Summary of key points from the 18th November event.
Councillors will be asked to consider the next steps.
Minutes:
Karen Linaker gave feedback on the key points from the 18th November event.
The aim of the workshop was to ensure the Board was working collaboratively with parish councils. A number of questions were considered during the workshop, a summary of the responses included:
· Collaborate on the key theme of climate change and biodiversity strategies and organise an Eco Villages Fair
· Strengthen communications, better use of technology
· Help parish council sub-groups better interact with the area board
· Improved interface with Wiltshire Council services and teams
· Improved liaison via clerks and area board, i.e. re-start parish cluster meet ups
· A fund to ensure clerks could take a more active involvement in area board meetings/work
· Ensure parish councils feel better supported and responded to on the smaller things, so that they felt more inclined and able to help the area board with bigger things
· Help Britford explore how it might facilitate an older people’s group/project
· Lover Repair Café was a good eco villages project to model
· Replicate model of asset/resource/idea sharing like SIDs, play area inspection/upkeep training, footpath maintenance, environment projects e.g. tree planting/orchards
· Join up to tackle cross parish issues such as the Porton-Salisbury cycle route
· Offer training on use of Our Community Matters, to help realise its potential as a key source of communication between the area board and parish councils, and vice versa, and parish council- parish council
· Develop a parish council knowledge hub (of projects, events, problems solved etc) and facilitate its communication via weekly posts on OCM
· Area Board to post out on OCM Friday newsletter – parish council good example of the week, like Alderbury Clerk’s round up of news/tips on how to recruit volunteers for projects
The Chairman noted that the key message boiled down to communications and how PCs could best share success stories through inter-parish council communications.
Cllr Richard Clewer, in his role as Leader of the Council was currently meeting with TCs across the county to look at precepts.
Questions and comments:
· Charles Penn – There could be opportunity for discussion between Wiltshire Council and PCs in terms of who did what, as sometimes a task may drop off one list and nothing was done unless another organisation or group picked it up.
· Cllr R Clewer – Transfers could include assets but not budget. He was due to hold an event with TCs to discuss asset transfers and infrastructure aspects to get more resource in to the parishes.
· With more collaboration enables more efficient use of assets. There was better spending power if collaboration was in place for buying regularly used items.
· The creation of a PC Hub which could be a shared system for use by all parishes to upload the minutes of any parish meeting which could then be referenced for research when starting a project or purchase. Enabling the parishes to tap into the knowledge and experiences of other parishes that had already carried out similar projects.
· Sharepoint is a Microsoft tool, if that was suitable, perhaps the Board could fund the purchase of a license and use that?
Action – KL to work with AO & ZC to take this forward and look at possible options