From: Sally Longmate SALC Sent: 08 August 2019 18:21 To: info@baptc.org.uk Subject: SALC meeting Attachments: Pre-planning application Protocol.pdf Dear Helen, Thank you for your time last week (please pass on my thanks to Peter and Beryl too). With a lot of change in progress here at SALC I was pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you and hear your views and learn about how you have worked in partnership to tackle common issues. There is still a lot for us to do in terms of communication and we have heard and acted upon feedback that information and messages to clerks do not always get through to councillors. To address this I explained we had revamped our website and made as much as possible open, allowing councillors to look at information and keep up to date themselves. The members area now has a lot of information and includes a back catalogue of e-bulletins and our digital newsletter, TLC. https://www.salc.org.uk/membersarea/ We have also re-written the Constitution to modernise how we work and to make sure that we maintain member engagement so that we ensure we are aware and have the opportunity to act upon the issues local councils are dealing with. It is also business critical that we have a cross representation on our Board as we are a “for members by members” organisation. The area forums are key to this and some don’t have as good attendance as we would like for a variety of reasons. This has been the case for some time so I wanted to really explore what we could do and how. We have asked all principal authorities if we can hold joint liaison meetings to save parishes time and make stronger connections. There is movement on this across Suffolk, I am pleased to say. My aspiration is to bring in bitesize learning to these forums as well as thinking collectively through some common issues and coming up with ideas that we can use to bring about change. The whole point of these is to network and to share good practice but often they can be very negative, although this is not the case in all areas. I attach the pre-application protocol that we currently have for our members. I believe this has been published in the past through our usual channels, which is always via the clerk for onward distribution. We have new online advice pages based on “topics” and whilst I appreciate this is under development and does not include planning at present, we started with the most common topics that are raised through our advice service. I am finalising the next phase of topics with the team here and I will ensure planning is included. We are also reviewing our training and looking to pilot e-learning on some general topics to test if there is appetite for this format. Another important topic I am looking to address is employment to help local councils recruit and manage people. On the subject of planning I mentioned our conference which we are finalising that forms part of our AGM, this year taking place in central Ipswich on 18th November. One of our core objectives is “value” and in particular I wanted to provide more inclusive services for members, such as this free conference and we have provided a number of free events over the past 12 months. Planning has been a hot topic and early on I felt there was merit in having a conference. From our conversation it seems that the work I am doing with Babergh/Mid Suffolk following a SALC motion around neighbourhood plans last year and our aspiration that the tiers of the public sector work together for a common aim is resulting in some changes. * we are working with them to help develop a new pre-application protocol, involving local councils (town and parish), developers and planning authorities. * piloting planning workshops to form part of our training programme (Babergh and Mid Suffolk districts only) that includes exploring the factors that can and cant be taken into account, how decisions are made and sometimes contrary to local objections and that help develop more effective ways to influence decisions. I am keen to refresh our existing planning training which is very basic so this is a good opportunity to do that. * Finally at our conference current titled Shaping Suffolk – working together to make a better place to live, we have included a session on infrastructure and hoping to involve Suffolk County Council. It would be interesting to have feedback from your group bearing in mind your considerable experience and frustrations to see if SALC is heading in the right direction and secondly what more we can do to influence change and assist our members in a fast changing public sector arena. I also mentioned Suffolk Design, who we have worked with on the matter of neighbourhood plans with a free workshop in Stowmarket. Here is a link to their website. https://www.suffolkdesign.uk/ Once again, thank you for your time. Kind regards, Sally Sally Longmate | CEO | Email: ceo@salc.org.uk Suffolk Association of Local Councils - Unit 11a Hill View Business Park - Old Ipswich Road -Claydon Ipswich - IP6 0AJ. DD: Tel 01473 833000 - Mobile 07436 263284 - Main office: Tel 01473 833713 Website www.salc.org.uk Twitter @SuffolkALC Confidentiality and Privilege: This email and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone; please reply to this email and highlight the error. This document is privileged and the benefit of the privilege belongs to SALC. The provision of this document does not amount to any waiver of privilege. This document is provided to SALC members in complete confidence and should not be disclosed to any other person without SALC's prior consent. Click here to view our privacy policy.. Security Warning and Viruses: Please note that this email has been created in the knowledge that Internet email is not a 100% secure communications medium. We advise that you understand and accept this lack of security when emailing us. Although we have taken steps to ensure that this email and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From: Sally Longmate SALC Sent: 17 June 2019 21:44 To: info@baptc.org.uk Subject: RE: Possible Meeting with BAPTC/SALC Dear Helen, Thank you for your email, I apologise for my delay in responding. I have asked Laura in our team to look for some dates and liaise. Kind regards, Sally Sally Longmate | CEO | Email: ceo@salc.org.uk Suffolk Association of Local Councils - Unit 11a Hill View Business Park - Old Ipswich Road -Claydon Ipswich - IP6 0AJ. DD: Tel 01473 833000 - Mobile 07436 263284 - Main office: Tel 01473 833713 Website www.salc.org.uk Twitter @SuffolkALC Confidentiality and Privilege: This email and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone; please reply to this email and highlight the error. This document is privileged and the benefit of the privilege belongs to SALC. The provision of this document does not amount to any waiver of privilege. This document is provided to SALC members in complete confidence and should not be disclosed to any other person without SALC's prior consent. Click here to view our privacy policy.. Security Warning and Viruses: Please note that this email has been created in the knowledge that Internet email is not a 100% secure communications medium. We advise that you understand and accept this lack of security when emailing us. Although we have taken steps to ensure that this email and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From: info@baptc.org.uk Sent: 06 June 2019 09:39 To: Sally Longmate SALC Cc: info@baptc.org.uk Subject: Possible Meeting with BAPTC/SALC Dear Sally, We met in April and agreed that having a discussion with yourselves could be helpful. Could you let me have some suitable dates and I will confirm who can attend. Regards, Helen Davies Chair - Babergh Alliance of Parish and Town Councils ===================================================================== ==== From: info@baptc.org.uk [mailto:info@baptc.org.uk] Sent: 04 April 2019 10:29 To: ceo@salc.org.uk Subject: Contact made via the BAPTC website Sally, Thank you for contacting BAPTC suggesting we meet to discuss ways of working together. This sounds a very interesting proposition which I will put on the agenda of next meeting for discussion. I will revert after our next meeting which is at the end of April. Kind regards Secretary - Babergh Alliance of Parish and Town Councils