Pod-on-the-Parish

It's that time of year again. Budgets need drafting, committees need consulting, and the precept request has to reach the district council before its deadline. Hannah Driver thinks this is the hardest part of the clerk's year: at year end the figures are what they are, but a budget asks you to think about what is coming and make judgements about it. In this episode she takes the whole process back to basics, from forecasting where this year will land, through building next year's budget line by line, to calculating the precept and keeping an eye on it all once it is set.

Hannah is Head Accountant at Scribe, where she has spent over eight years working with hundreds of parish and town councils on their finances. She was last on the podcast in Episode 11, covering accounting basics. This session is pitched at new clerks, RFOs and councillors, and at anyone who would like a refresher before precept-setting season.

What Hannah covers:

John and Hannah also talk about Scribe's new budget worksheet, which takes your Scribe data into a spreadsheet for trying out different scenarios and then imports the agreed budget back in for next year.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

A bundle of planning drawings arrives, and unless you have a design background it can feel like a wall of technical jargon and scale bars. Tom Sykes is an architect, and he thinks that is precisely backwards: the drawings are not the fluff around a planning application, they are the application. Everything else describes what the drawings will actually build.

Tom was Head of Design for Transport for London and an Expert for the Design Council before founding Common Works, an architecture practice working with public sector clients and community groups. In this episode he takes councils through how to get inside a drawing, what quality looks like when you find it, and how to push back in language a planner has to take seriously.

What Tom covers:

Tom's closing thought is worth the listen on its own: you do not have to like the look of any scheme he shows. Whether a place helps people form a community is a different question from whether you find it attractive, and that one is decided by the arrangement, not the styling.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Lee Jakeman joined the RAF at 16, ran the administrative side of a military base, and worked contingency planning on 9/11 before deciding a parish council job advert looked “a bit like running a military base”. Fifteen years as a town clerk followed — Newport, Bridgnorth and Kidderminster — until he decided he no longer wanted to work “9 till 9, six days a week” and went locum. He's now a partner at LGRC Associates.

This isn't a policy briefing. It's an honest account of arriving somewhere cold, including the mistakes Lee made on the way, and it's as useful to permanent clerks as to anyone thinking about interim work.

What Lee covers:

John also puts the audience's questions to Lee: why do a job this challenging (“if you don't get up in the morning for a challenge, you might as well stay in bed”), how to land a first clerk role and what red flags to watch for at interview, and what locum work actually pays.

Lee's line on experience is worth the price of admission on its own: “somebody who's got 20 years of experience might have 20 years of the same yearly experience.”

Interested in locum or consultancy work through LGRC? Email [email protected] or express an interest via lgrc.uk.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

A short bonus episode. This is Claire Reed, Proper Practices Project Manager at NALC, speaking at the Digital AGAR webinar in July 2026 — lifted out of Episode 16 and published on its own while the consultation is open. If you've already heard Episode 16, you've heard this.

The Proper Practices — the Governance & Accountability guidance that sits behind the AGAR — are being rewritten by CIPFA for Category 2 authorities, meaning those with income or expenditure of £15 million or less. Claire works on that rewrite alongside the Smaller Authorities Proper Practices Panel. The guide has been shortened, de-jargoned and given a glossary, guidance is signposted by authority type with a separate appendix for parish meetings, and the roles and responsibilities of clerks, RFOs, members and auditors are spelled out. She's explicit that this is not just about getting through the audit — it's about being able to run the council properly.

Two changes are worth your attention. Assertion 6 becomes "governance", and with it a new requirement: internal and external audit reports must be reviewed in an open public meeting, published on your website, and backed by an action plan that somebody actually monitors. And there's a new CIPFA code of practice for internal audit — aimed, in Claire's words, squarely at the arrangement where somebody local has a quick glance over the accounts in exchange for a bottle of wine or an M&S voucher.

On the accounts themselves: borrowing is separated out, staff costs stop being a standalone line — a privacy fix for councils with a single employee — debtors and creditors move onto the form itself, and reserves are split between earmarked and general, so residents can see why a council is holding the money it holds.

The consultation runs through August and September. The new guidance is due in early 2027 and applies to the 27/28 financial year — so this is the point at which saying something still changes the outcome.

Claire uses a mock-up built in the new digital AGAR portal, which Lance Allan of SAAA demos in full in Episode 16. More from NALC and SAAA.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

The Annual Governance & Accountability Return is moving online. In this episode Lance Allan, User Acceptance & Training Project Manager at SAAA (Smaller Authorities' Audit Appointments), talks John through the new digital AGAR portal — trialled with 78 real submissions this year and available to every authority from spring for the 26/27 return. Claire Reed, Proper Practices Project Manager at NALC, then sets out the CIPFA rewrite of the Proper Practices and what it means for your accounts and governance from 27/28.

Lance's section is the practical one. The portal won't be compulsory next year, but there's a cash incentive for using it. Your login is the email address your external auditor already holds — so tell people if it changes. The system opens in the autumn so you can have a practice run, and the 25/26 comparative figures you enter then are saved for you. He also explains why you'll want to do the accounting statements before the meeting and take a blank annual governance statement to it, and how the system produces a redacted, accessible copy of the signed AGAR for your website with the signatures stripped out.

The most useful few minutes are about variances. You need an explanation once you're over 15%, and over £100,000 for larger councils — and, crucially, you do not need to explain every last pound. Lance is explicit that external auditors now know not to ask for that: an explanation covering £100,000 of a £100,828 variance is more than satisfactory. But he's equally clear about the other end of it — if you're sitting at 15.5%, don't scrabble around for a few pounds just to drop under the threshold. Explain the majority of it.

Claire's half covers the rewrite. The guide has been shortened, de-jargoned and given a glossary; guidance is now signposted by authority type, with a separate appendix for parish meetings; and roles and responsibilities for clerks, RFOs, members and auditors are spelled out. Assertion 6 becomes "governance", bringing a new requirement that internal and external audit reports are reviewed in an open public meeting, published on the website, and backed by a monitored action plan. There's a new CIPFA code of practice for internal audit in Category 2 authorities — aimed squarely at the arrangement where someone local glances over the accounts for a bottle of wine or an M&S voucher. On the accounts themselves: borrowing is separated out, staff costs stop being a separate line (a privacy fix for one-employee councils), debtors and creditors move onto the form itself, and reserves are split between earmarked and general so residents can see why a council is holding money.

Also in this one: Claire on going from sixteen years as a primary school teacher to local government (and knocking herself out demonstrating how to catch a ball), Lance on cycling 800 miles in nine days for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and whether software providers will be able to feed figures straight into the portal.

A consultation on the full Proper Practices runs in August and September, with the new guidance published in early 2027 and applying to the 27/28 financial year. Useful links: SAAA and NALC.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Martyn's Law — the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 — has caused real anxiety across the sector, with some councils cancelling fireworks displays, steam rallies and community events out of fear they can't comply. In this episode, Alex Jay, Managing Director of Little Green Button, joins John to cut through the jargon and explain what the Act actually requires — and, for most councils, how modest that really is.

Alex's background is in data and safety technology rather than counter-terrorism. Little Green Button is a UK safety-tech company whose digital panic alarms and lone-worker tools are used across healthcare, education and local government. He's refreshingly clear that no product makes you "Martyn's Law compliant", and that the honest answer for a lot of parish and town councils is that they fall out of scope altogether — but should still write down why.

The conversation walks through the essentials: the Manchester Arena attack and Figen Murray's campaign that led to the law; the two-year implementation period and the spring enforcement date; the tiers (exempt under 200, standard 200–800, enhanced 800+) and what counts as a qualifying event; the difference between evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication procedures; and the common mistakes — panic-buying kit, assuming everything is in scope (or that nothing is), and contracting away accountability.

Alex's practical playbook: list your premises and regular events, estimate realistic peak numbers, identify who actually has control, refresh your hiring agreements, keep procedures to simple one-pagers, brief staff and volunteers, and — above all — record your reasoning and review it annually. There's also a nice detour on whether AI tools can help you check your own scope (spoiler: yes, if you make it cite the Home Office or SIA rather than "Barry's blog").

Useful links: ProtectUK's Martyn's Law hub (including the in-scope flow charts), the Home Office / SIA guidance on the regulator's new role, and Little Green Button.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Employment law is facing its biggest shake-up in a generation, and for lean council teams a single tribunal claim can be financially and operationally devastating. In this episode, HR and governance specialist James Corrigan joins John to unpack what the Employment Rights Act 2025 actually means for parish, town and community councils — and, crucially, what to do about it.

James has spent more than two decades advising local authorities on HR and ACAS compliance, after a career that took him from court clerk to town-council chief executive — via three degrees earned while working, a spell as a competitive rugby player, and a former life on the trumpet. He explains how the Act is arriving in stages, why the qualifying period for unfair dismissal is dropping to six months, how the shift to taking “all reasonable steps” raises the bar on preventing harassment (including harassment of staff by councillors), and why AI tools are driving a surge in low-cost tribunal claims.

Along the way he shares the practical playbook: cap probations at three months, get onboarding and one-to-ones right, check your policies before you act, and — his nan's advice, and the theme of the episode — remember that a stitch in time saves nine. Deal with problems early, and document everything.

Topics covered include the phased rollout of the Act; day-one and six-month rights; statutory sick pay and menopause guidance; the preventative duty on sexual harassment and third-party harassment; unlimited damages and the risk of high-value claims; AI-generated claims; and the immediate actions every clerk and RFO should take.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Eleanor Greene is back — this time to walk you through the bit that comes after the AGAR submission: the external audit stage. In this episode, Eleanor covers what external auditors actually look for, why one in three councils received a qualified audit last year, and how to give yourself the best possible chance of a clean sign-off before the summer ends.

Eleanor has been auditing parish and town council accounts since 1997 — nearly 400 audits across her career — and this season alone has audited 97 councils. She knows every query the four major firms (PKF, BDO, Mazars, Moors) send out, and she's seen every way a council can trip over its own paperwork. Her advice is frank, practical, and occasionally quite funny.

Topics covered include: the four external audit firms, how they're appointed, and why they ask for different things; turnover thresholds, fee bands, and why a SIL receipt can create two years of high audit bills; what AGN02 actually says auditors can and can't ask for; the most common AGAR consistency errors; exercise of public rights — who actually turns up and what they're entitled to; writing variance explanations that get the auditor off your back the first time; what Assertion 10 compliance looks like at external audit stage; how to handle a query you don't understand without guessing; and John's quick bonus segment on setting up an email auto-reply that does actual work for you over August.

John also asks Eleanor the Pay-it-Forward question left by Dr Gale Pettifer (Episode 12): if you could choose anyone, alive or dead, to be your mentor, who would you choose?

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Most clerks deal with planning applications, precepts, and the occasional difficult councillor. Gale Pettifer deals with all of that — plus donkeys cracking open wheelie bins, cars floating down the village high street, and a 75-year-old content creator staging a sit-in on a footbridge that made national news. Life in the New Forest National Park is like no other posting in the sector, and Gale — Clerk & Proper Officer at Brockenhurst Parish Council, a practicing commoner, and a "girl from Kent who always dreamed of ponies" — tells it like it is.

Brockenhurst is the largest parish council in the New Forest: around 3,500 residents that can double in summer with tourists, a precept of £107.82, a median resident age of 51, and a cross-rail link from London Waterloo to Manchester Piccadilly that brings both day-trippers and the occasional car onto the railway tracks by mistake. The parish sits inside the New Forest National Park — designated in 2005, shaped by commoners' livestock since William the Conqueror in 1079 — which means almost nothing is straightforward. Gas mains? Dug by hand because the route crossed SSSI-designated land. A new bus shelter? First, find land to swap with the verderers so the grazing footprint stays the same. A crumbling footbridge? Negotiate with Forestry England while Natural England checks the environmental impact on the surrounding SSSI. A water splash on the main road? Cars float in a surprisingly small depth of water, and the council is working with the Environment Agency, Hampshire County Council, and Forestry Commission on a flood resilience plan.

The governing landscape around a New Forest council is unlike anything a standard Proper Practices guide covers: the New Forest National Park Authority handles planning; the Verderers — a statutory body dating back centuries — protect commoners' rights over the unenclosed forest; Forestry England acts for DEFRA as landowner; Natural England holds the conservation designations; the Environment Agency, New Forest District Council, and Hampshire County Council all have roles. Layer in Brockenhurst College, the Village Hall Trust, Friends of Brockenhurst, and Speed Watch, and a typical clerk's week involves more stakeholders than most.

The animals are both the draw and the daily operational challenge. The ponies, cattle, donkeys, and pigs are semi-feral — not wild, not pets, free to roam anywhere across the unenclosed forest, with full right of way over traffic. They fertilise the heathland, keep the landscape open, and maintain biodiversity that earned the New Forest its designation. They also work out how to open wheelie bins (the district council's new food caddies lasted approximately one week before the donkeys cracked them), alert the parish office when they're lying down for a proper sleep (panicking visitors who think they've found a dead foal), and get encouraged into local shops by Brockenhurst College students roughly once a year — always a slow news week, always national coverage.

Gale herself is a practicing commoner — she bought a property with rights of common, established her entitlement at the Verderers' Court, found a mentor among established commoners, and now has her own ponies roaming the forest. On weekend evenings she goes out to find them, identifies them by their markings and the way they walk, and checks on them the way a farmer checks on livestock — except hers are somewhere across 220 square miles of open heathland. "I think I went through the wardrobe and came out in Narnia," she says. She grew up on a council estate in Kent, cried herself to sleep as a child for want of a pony, worked at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue at 18, and eventually found her way to the New Forest and a life she pinches herself over every day.

The advice she'd give her 18-year-old self: learn about money. Not an accounting course — just the really boring stuff. Pensions. Savings. Starting early.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.

Stepping into a role that involves public money can feel overwhelming — especially when local council finance comes with its own rules, "proper practices" and terminology that can read like a different language. This episode is the antidote: a friendly, jargon-free walk through the building blocks every Clerk and Responsible Financial Officer needs, pitched squarely at people who are new to the finance side of the role (or want to shore up the fundamentals). As Hannah puts it, you don't need to be a maths whiz — you need to understand the foundations and have the right systems in place.

Hannah Driver is Head Accountant at Scribe, where she's spent eight years working day-to-day with parish and town councils of every size. Before Scribe she spent twelve years at Norse, a facilities-management company serving district and county-level councils, and she studied business management (with an accounting bent) at the UEA. Away from the numbers she's a keen fossil hunter — collecting ammonites and jet on the Yorkshire coast — and runs a long-standing Playmobil side hustle, buying, restoring and reselling sets.

The heart of the episode is a whole-year overview of council finance. Hannah starts with what makes council accounting different and the role of the RFO, then clarifies the distinction that trips people up most: receipts and payments (cash accounting — what happened, when it happened) versus income and expenditure (which considers the period a transaction relates to, with debtor and creditor adjustments). If Box 7 and Box 8 on your AGAR match, you're almost certainly in receipts and payments; if they differ, you're in income and expenditure. Councils under £200,000 gross can use receipts and payments; go over for three consecutive years and you must move to income and expenditure (and restate the prior year when you switch).

From there she makes the case that the cashbook is the single most important accounting record a council keeps — do it little and often, split out the VAT, keep a full audit trail of invoices, reconcile to the bank monthly, and structure it around your budget codes so budget-versus-actual reporting is easy. The VAT section covers both non-registered councils (reclaiming via Form 126 on the Government Gateway, whole calendar months, claims going back up to four years) and registered councils (VATable income like a car park, café or bar; the £1,000 output-tax trigger; Making Tax Digital; aligning VAT quarters to 31 March).

Hannah rounds out the practical content with the asset register — the record behind Box 9 (Box 12 in Wales), why there's no depreciation in council accounting, the £1 proxy value for gifted or community assets, and using it to plan renewals — and reserves: a general reserve of roughly three to twelve months' expenditure, earmarked reserves for specific projects and asset renewals, and capital reserves (including the rule that asset-disposal proceeds over £10k must sit in a capital reserve). The golden rule: reserves must be justifiable, not just money sitting in the bank with no plan. The episode also includes a quick overview of the Scribe accounts software from Hannah's colleague India.

In the outro, Hannah's one thing to take away is that almost everything flows from a good, accurate, up-to-date cashbook — get that foundation right and the rest falls into place — plus a gentle bit of advice from her younger self: don't overthink it, don't sweat the small stuff, and try to be happy. She also takes on the Pay-it-Forward question and leaves a cracking one of her own.

This episode is brought to you by Scribe and Civic.ly.

Get the video and slides: Watch the full webinar recording and download the speaker's resources.