How would you improve your Parish? Well this is the questions I had to answer as a Bicker Parish Councillor recently as Bicker Fen is being overdeveloped in the Gold Rush of Renewable Energy Projects overtaking Lincolnshire's Countryside. These projects, many that are not Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects which is its own issue, bring with them a number of drawbacks from Rural communities. Most notably Bicker's roads in mine and many others views cannot sustain the constant stream of construction traffic arriving to build these sites. With the Labour Government's push for Renewable Energy this means building may continue for decades not just years as the substation is expanded to accommodate new projects. I will not get too deep into this aspect, as frankly it annoys me that a government could be so reckless with the land we grow are food on, and focus on the one benefit for local communities. Community Benefit Funds are monies provided by projects to Communities while these energy sites are in operation, usually quite significant amounts of money. Some give this money with no strings attached on a yearly basis while others want some more accountability and involvement in where the money ends up. At any rate all this money will be pumped into supporting the local community, in this case Bicker Parish only as the vast majority of projects only affect our area. Bicker Parish may host up to 21 energy projects in the end each with there own fund so I pose the question to you, what would you spend a million pounds on in your Parish? Please email me with your ideas james.cantwell@goodgovernanceblog.co.uk Catch you on my next Article

Firstly an Emergency Plan is a document that has many key sections which can be helpful to the Emergency Services and Planners in case of scenarios such as flooding, evacuations or prolonged power cuts to name a few. To me the most important parts of a plan are listed below Directory of Local Volunteers This is a list of Locals who can be called upon to help staff an evacuation centre, support with opening up community spaces for residents and help give out important information in a crisis. For the Emergency Plan I am working on they will be given the opportunity to undertake First Aid, and Crisis training from the Lincolnshire Resilience Forum. I view these volunteers as an network of Auxiliary's ready to support the Emergency Services in not vital tasks if needed. Local Intelligence The plan allows Parishes to outline the issue points they know of in their community, for example when the rain is heavy which roads flood, blocked culverts, trees at risk of blowing over etc. The plan can also list the roads and general areas that more vulnerable residents live who made need additional help in a crisis, although Data Protection would not allow you to list house numbers. Emergency Centres The plan will contain information collected by the Parish about community spaces that can be used as rest of evacuation centres by the Emergency Services if needed. Importantly it was also say where keyholders can be contacted. The Emergency Plan has many elements but these I feel are the most important sections. SInce last year I and a group of volunteers from Parish Councils and Communities have been working to create a Joint plan for 5 Parishes, with more interested in joining. Although a lot of work is required I feel this is the way Emergency Plans should be going. It is clear in my mind that none of the 5 Parishes had the people or volunteers to create a plan by themselves, I expect many are in the same boat. It is only be joining others that these vital documents can be created and importantly a wider pool of volunteers recruited and trained. I believe every Parish should have an emergency plan and which Parish Councils are responsible for developing them they don't need to do this alone. Hopefully these plans never need to be used but it is comforting to know that if a crisis did occur there is a system and core of volunteers in place ready to help if needed. If you would like more details on our Terms of Reference and process of creation for the "Joint Villages Emergency Team" then please get in touch. We will be publishing our Emergency Plan in the coming months. As always catch you on the next article

As first you may think me very biased on the subject as I am a serving Parish Councillor however while I believe that Parish Councils have great potential I do feel they are very limited in their usefulness at the moment. However before I get into the downsides of Parish Councils I think it is best to discuss their positives. These bodies have such potential for good in Rural Communities that their importance to forming a community fabric cannot be understated. They tend to be made up of well minded residents instead of politicians, like District, County and Unitary authorities meaning it is hypothetically easier to get stuff done. Parish Councils are truly grassroots bodies who tend to have their finger on the pulse of what their residents want or what there issues are. Parish Councils can have a powerful voice in their local community and have a say on local Planning matters, can develop a neighborhood plan to develop community needs, have a parish precept and can form a emergency plan in case of disasters. A Parish Council is anything the Councillors wish to make it so the opportunities for it to benefit the community are endless. However, there are many downsides to these grassroots bodies being that if ineffective councillors get elected or co-opted then these bodies tend to become useless. Poor Councils are not thinking of future village needs but simply maintaining the status quo, this is a common theme in all levels of Local Government. Even worse is toxic councils bully the best talent out of the council meaning those who would push forward projects are not in the right place to do it. Parish Councils can get away with being ineffective bodies as most residents are not aware of their huge potential, I feel most don't understand what the Council does. As there is no regulator for ineffective Parish Councils, Local Government Associations are only advisory bodies, this means they are never held to account. If a bad clerk gets in post they have a tendency to dominate the council to do what they want or the councillors dominate the clerk resulting in unlawful decisions being made. Parish Councils are a noble idea but failed by all political parties who do not pay enough attention to these Councils. This is why I say there is so much opportunity for these bodies, it blows my mind how unimaginative most Parish Councils are. I am lucky to represent an area with relatively good Parish Councils but I can see so many missed opportunities for projects they could undertake. The answer to my question is Parish Councils are adequate in their current form however things could change to make them exceptional. Here are a couple of my ideas for improvements: 1. The government needs to create a regulator for Parish Councils that has the powers to remove ineffective Councillors and Clerks 2. We need to come to grasp with the shortage of qualified and willing Parish Council Clerks 3. Parish Councils need more powers, especially as district councils cease to exist in the coming years. 4. Parish Councillors need to be paid, helping with the shortage of Councillors. 5. Young People need to be encouraged to stand for Parish Councils, Councillors tend to be one demographic. 6. Parish Councils need to join together and form partnerships to deliever services 7. We need to professionalise Parish Councils and turn them into effective, regulated and accountable bodies. Now how you achieve these aims is a whole article by itself but what is clear in my mind is change needs to happen sooner rather than later or Parish Councils will go extinct in this century. Happy New Year everyone and I will catch you on my next article

When I started volunteering at 17 with a service called "Youth Central" advocating for issues facing young people I had no idea it was the beginning of an activity I still enjoy today. I know for myself and many others that you do get a large amount of joy from giving your time for a good cause. I suppose in many ways volunteering is very selfish in that those who do it tend to get much more gratification out of it just as someone earns money from working. Once I left for university in 2017 I continued volunteering for various causes such as Age Uk and my student RAG, the enjoyment I got from this work did not diminish with time. Even though some of these roles where tough and largely manual labour oriented they still helped develop skills that I use today. Working in a charity shop gives you a great deal of confidence to talk to people while leading my student RAG allowed me to gain knowledge about charity law. During Covid-19 a Councillor in the London Borough of Hillingdon I was good friends with was selected to be one of the coordinators for a Emergency Food/Prescription Service setup for those on the shielded list. He offered me to become co-ordinator which I eagerly said yes to. This was my proudest moment in my voluntary career and the following months where full of many long days. I got to know so many fantastic folks and the staff of a local charity who were working with the council to deliver this service, H4ALL. Again the enjoyment of helping my community during a time of crisis was well worth the time, effort and difficult conversations with those on the Shielded List. Once the council ended this partnership and brought it in house I started to volunteer with the vaccination service as well for a short while. Its safe to say I did not do as much studying as I should of at university, which is definitely why I ended up with a Diploma and not a Degree. To me volunteering was always more important than anything else in my life. My answer to why should you volunteer is quite simple, it is the right thing to do. Giving anytime to a good cause is worth it in the long run for your happiness and those the cause helps. While you do not need to make volunteering your entire life it can be refreshing to have something different from work and studying. I will say that the suggestion it boosts your CV I sometimes find dubious, my CV is full of volunteering roles but I have never seen these been the key factor in getting any job. Although these roles are acknowledged I have not seen recruiters place much weight on them. A big advantage of volunteering is you can pick the cause you want to dedicate your time to. S omething I did was overextend myself, volunteering my time with too many different group/causes. There is a thing as too much volunteering and its better to be aware of it early on. I suppose with anything you do, be it work or a hobby, do not let it dominate your life so you have nothing left outside of it. Despite the challenges of volunteering and limited uses of that experience, depending on the cause, I still think it is well worth everyone putting in some time for it.

It is a common fact among most parish councils around England that there is a shortage of people who volunteer, serve on villages groups and even become parish councilors. Certainly, since I have been elected a parish council last May it is something I have seen firsthand. Out of the blue we had a young lad want to volunteer in his local parish for the Duke of Edinburgh Award and as the council assigned him a councillor to supervise his volunteering it became apparent to me about what a brilliant idea this was. He was quickly put to work litter picking in the village and down the internal drainage dykes common place in Lincolnshire. This rapidly made sure he made up his hours for the award, so in summary the Parish gained out of this arrangement and so did the young lad. I think this link needs more publicity both with Parish Councils and young people looking to go for this award and volunteer. It is a fantastic win win scenario and I know some staff at the National Association of Local Government are very keen to push this further, and I will be certainly all for this. If anyone is interested in wanting concerns and ideas raised with the governing body for Parish Council’s, please let me know as I was recently made a co-chair of the NALC Young Councilors Network. https://www.nalc.gov.uk/ https://www.dofe.org/ Thanks for reading this short thought and see you next time.

When I was elected President of Brunel RAG, which I served as from 2019-2021, I found a society with no resources, no members and no committee which was certainly a set back to begin with. The society had long been neglected as many years had gone by since there even was a committee, such is the nature of student societies, yet I saw a great opportunity to do some good for charity. Immediately, with some persuading, I got some people interested and set up my first committee at the same time we purchased everything we needed from leaflets to banners and money buckets, we got this via a kick starter loan from our student union. To fundraise successfully, in my view, you must spend money to make money you rarely can make money out of nothing, unless you are a genius. There are many fantastic resources out there for RAG’s if you know where to look, the National Student Fundraising Association, Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the National Union of Students all have solid resources which I can recommend using. The keen focus for me was cheap, cheerful, and easy events which everyone could enjoy, particularly the Nerf Gun Firing Range worked well as well as a simple information stall at busy tube stations/streets around London. However, by far our most successful event was selling shot's at the on campus nightclub for charity, which raised more money than all our previous events for the 2019-2020 year combined. It was a massive shame that Covid prevented us doing that again as it was massively successful. It should be noted that we where covered under our student unions Public Liability Insurance however you will need to check this before fundraising. You will also need to check that your union is signed up to the Fundraising Regulator and than any charity buckets/challices you use are clearly labelled with which caused the money will go to. Events are one side of the coin for RAG fundraising the other side was passive fundraising, which I am a big fan of, which I introduced in 2019 at Brunel. The idea was to set up charity boxes in the on-campus restaurants, cafés, stores and bars where there were tills. I am happy to say most were willing for us to put these there and they were a huge income provider for our society, particularly Costcutter as this was in the centre of campus and always busy when I collect the buckets they were full to the brim each time, I changed them weekly. The common theme with our events and passive fundraising was they were simple ideas, ensuring we did not over complicate how we raised money for charity. I wish at the time we embraced online fundraising more, and I suggest to any RAG to consider putting time and effort into Facebook fundraising. I also wished we partnered with more local business’ around the campus which would have allowed us to increase the passive fundraising we occurred during the week. Getting volunteers remained my single greatest obstacle and there was sadly never a simple solution to attract people to volunteer. We partnered with our universities volunteer service, so that RAG volunteers would log their volunteering hours and get awards. This did work well and combined with our efforts to show students what a CV boosting exercise being a volunteer was did attract some to volunteer. Although there was always a shortage of people interested and even though many students spoke to as at events and stall days few ever took that next step, I suppose a salesman attitude is important for this. My suggestion would be to keep going and not be disheartened by this, it can be argued that having fewer dedicate volunteers it better than having many disengaged ones, although I am sure people short of volunteers only say this. RAG’s have so much potential both to do good and boost a student’s prospects for employment after university, something which the vast majority of students are unaware of. So, get involved with your RAG if you are a student and I think you will see it is a worthwhile experience, just as I did. If you have any questions or advice then please get touch My next article will release in February so see you then. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Fundamentally the role of a LA governor and co-opted governor and identical apart from a couple of minor areas. For one a LA governor is recruited by the local authority, if you are in a multi-tier local government system then it will be whichever authority acts as the education authority. For me I filled out an application form and the specified the general geographic area I would be happy to serve as a governor in. After the authority have found you a school the school has to then agree to take you on board. Usually they will want to interview you or show you round the school however usually LA governors are sort after as there arent alot of people who volunteer to be one. Once you are in place you can only be removed if both the authority and the school agree your removal, although the school can stop you coming to meetings. Being a co-opted governor is a bit simpler in which you just apply to the school that has the vacancy and they interview you and take you through the process. Once you are in place all governors carry out the same role from Parent governors to Staff governors, the only difference is how you are appointed and recruited. I had no issues being a co-opted or LA governor and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to get more involved in education governance. Most schools tend to follow the same scheme of organisation for governing boards you have a full board meeting, a committee that looks after finance, property and resources and one which focus' on students, curriculum, results etc. The full board hears reports from these committees at a annual meeting, agrees policies, gets updates from the senior leadership team and is the highest decision making body for the school. You then have more specialised committees such as payroll, headteacher review and others although these change from school to school. You mat also be assigned a subject to be a lead for this involved keeping in touch with the subject lead, conducting visits and bringing any thoughts or issues to the boards attention. All in all the role of governor is a lot scarier than it looks. I have loved being a school governor at all 3 of the schools I've served at, and I have had the pleasure of serving on a range of committees. I remember learning the acronyms was the hardest part for me when I first got involved in 2019, so I would recommend getting some acronym list explanations like the ones the National Governance Association and Governors for Schools offer. Being a governor is a great way to see what schools get up to and support school staff, which I always saw as a integral part of the role. It can be hard to adjust to the more technical elements such as results or acronyms however please ask questions as I have always find staff are happy to answer. If you have any questions or advice then please get touch My next article will release in August so see you then. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Over my past 7 years of committee work I have seen countless policies, constitutions, appendix's, documents, reports and I know that this can be overwhelming if you are not used to it. If you are a trustee, policies are something you tend to come across regularly, and if you are trying to found a charity then you will become very familiar with policy creation. When I helped found The Gurkha Centre we were suddenly faced with a mammoth task by the Charity Commission to create a number of policies and documents. If you are in same situation please know that it is not as bad as it first seems, I was amazed about the wealth of guidance and templates ,for all policies, that were readily available on the internet . If you are really struggling then there is also the option of hiring a legal professional to help you make sure your policies are compliant, in my experience a legal set of eyes is most useful when creating a GDPR policy due to its technical nature. The good news is that when a policy is created and agreed by the trustees you have a document that you can continue to build for as long as your charity exists. Policies are there to guide the charity to a compliant path, the more you ignore them the more you can be at risk of falling into bad governance. I am unsure what is the bigger challenge with policies whether it be creating them or reviewing them, i think it differs from charity to charity. In my experience creating them was surprisingly the easier part, the reviewing of them was more challenging due to a number of reasons. Number one is that the trustee board must review the policy, usually yearly for The Gurkha Centre, and it can become tough to get trustees to read it and understand it. Secondly most charities have lots of different policies and documents which can make it hard to schedule times to review them. Thirdly when organisations have audits, I would always recommend having an internal audit every so often, the auditors will call you up on every little mistake and issue with these large documents. Ok so the last one isn't so bad, more of a positive actually, but the point Im making is that policy review can take up too much time for a board if you are not careful. The best thing I have ever done is simply to say to my trustees that there is no stupid questions when it comes to policies it has been beneficial to create a open forum for policy review. Now you do not have to review policies yearly, although I prefer it that way, as many minor policies would be quite stagnant in regard to changes. The big ones to always keep on a top on for small charities in my opinion would be GDPR, Health and Safety as well as your Reserves Policy. The Reserves Policy may not seem vital however grant giving organisations tend to want a copy of this policy as well as banks, so it's good to create one before you apply to the commission to register as an charity . Anyway I hope you have enjoyed this short article about my experience with policies and if you are reading this please remember that although they are important don't be too nervous as there are lots of people to reach out to for guidance. Please head to the useful link and guides page if you would like more expert advice on this than me. If you have any questions or advice please get in touch. My next article will release in July so see you then. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

I remember when I first chaired a trustee meeting back in 2020 for a veteran’s charity The Gurkha Centre what sticks in my mind is the fact, I was Incredibly nervous beforehand about messing it all up. I had every conceivable resource open in from me for our meeting, our constitution, commission guidance, policies, timetables for discussion in fact it cluttered my desk so much I hardly had any place to set my laptop for our virtual meeting. After the meeting I found I didn’t use most of things I laid out in front of me, even though we had 2 hrs of discussions and debate, a lot of what I worried about didn’t come to pass. This is not to say that issues didn’t come up from technical issues to heated discussions, but my first meeting was not the disaster I thought it would be. As a new chair, and trustee, at the time my charity committee experience was limited however I can say that learning the chairing role became easier as time goes on. A lot of chair work is applying commonsense to situations i.e are the policies we have up to scratch or is this discussion relevant to board work. My advice to new chairs is that your first meeting rarely ends up being as embarrassing for you as you thought it would and I would add that if it was disastrous then you have probably learnt a lot of valuable knowledge from that. More generally Trustee work at the beginning is one big learning curve so embrace it make sure to ask for things to be explained even when you are the chair, or as some say ask the stupid questions, because in meetings I guarantee you are not the only one who is struggling at times. I have now chaired multiple meetings and I have found that although they all begin the same, they rarely have the same structure. Sometimes a productive discussion will occur, trustees will want to hear further on different topics, and you see the development of trustees gaining the confidence to offer advice, which makes a set structure for meetings hard to create. In my experience being flexible with the agenda is always beneficial and if as a chair you feel the board wants to explore a particular area, do not hold the set times and items as sacrosanct. Although I try to keep trustee meetings to around 2 hrs sometimes you will fall short of that or go over so don’t worry to much if you are not bang on time. Try to keep the conversations active and productive, there is always a tendency to descend into irrelevant conversation, so try to politely move the conversation back onto board work, if possible, as there is always time to chit chat after a meeting. I also do not advise, if possible, the chair taking the minutes as this can distract you from leading the boards the meeting so try and get someone to take minutes who would not be directly involved in the conversations. In fact, The Gurkha Centre, the charity I chair for, now record all board meetings, and publish a brief overview of meetings which has not only allowed us to be more transparent but to also allow trustees to easily catch-up previous meetings if they are missed without deciphering complex minutes. Although if you do release these to the public, please take care to remove sections which may contain confidential information about your clients or the charities’ work. I am always against asking all trustees to ask questions or turn on their cameras if it is a virtual meeting, even though I always turn mine on. In my opinion having your camera on against your wishes has very little benefit for anyone after all you are adults and can make your own decisions. Equally I never pressure anyone to speak if they do not wish, something I hated at school was when teachers made students speak in front of the class, sometimes I have had shy trustees ask the best questions via the chat box on zoom. I try to let my trustees choose how they will contribute to conversations, and although this is my own personal preference do not feel pressure to do the same. Different systems of engagement work for different boards after all. So, you are now all set for your first trustee meeting however what happens if a discussion descends into an argument ? I have dealt with this a couple of times, and although rare, arguments quickly derail a trustee meeting, so it is important to asset control quickly. After all you are the chair, and it is your job to ensure that meetings remain dedicate to board work so putting your foot down when necessary is vital. Although I have never chucked a trustee out of a meeting, usually they stop before it reaches that stage, giving them firms words to stop arguing usually does the trick. So to conclude do not worry too much about your first meeting, even if it does go wrong, mistakes are natural and the knowledge you gain from them is far more important than the mistake itself. You will make mistakes so try to make peace with the fact that no one is the perfect chair, including me. Try to enjoy your new role, have fun, relax, and make sure to engage with your trustees as much as possible. There is no definitive book for chairing as I find you need to find your own path to being an effective chair there is however wonderful guidance/advice on the Charity Commission Website and the Association of Chairs which is worth reading. Below is a link to the Association of Chairs website, a organisation I recommend joining, who offer a brilliant guide called The Chair's Compass https://www.associationofchairs.org.uk/small-charities/ If you have any questions or need advice then please get in touch. My next article will release in May so see you then. Thanks for reading and have a great day.