DRAFT Minutes of the Meeting of the Blackawton Parish Council Personnel SubCommittee held on Wednesday 26 November 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in Blackawton Village Hall
Present: Cllrs Rake (Chair), Hadow, Mardon, and Oughton, and A Thom (Clerk)
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Apologies
All members present.
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Declarations of Interest
None declared.
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Approval of Minutes
It was resolved to approve the Minutes of the meeting on 26 March 2025.
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Training
The meeting considered recommending arranging a DALC whole council bespoke training course, with a short course for up to 10 people cost of approximately £250 plus travel. It was agreed to do this. Date to be confirmed with full BPC.
Suggested topics discussed, in order, were running meetings more efficiently, procurement, roles and responsibilities, Assertion 10 (in the 25/26 Annual Audit regarding security and accessibility of digital services and data), and sexual harassment (new positive obligation to prevent).
Cllr Hadow joined the meeting during this discussion.
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Development of BPC Policies
The new duty from October 2024 Requiring Employers to Protect Employees from Sexual Harassment and the Equality Act 2010 requirement for an Equality & Diversity Policy were noted. It was agreed to write a Dignity at Work Policy and an Equality & Diversity Policy using the template documents available via NALC (National Association of Local Councils).
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Pension Contribution Levels
The Clerk’s Report explaining that minimum pension contributions are calculated on ‘qualifying earnings’ and that BPC has paid above that minimum by using total earnings was noted and discussed, and it was decided that no action is required.
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Clerk’s Annual Leave
The Clerk’s annual leave requests were approved. One week of leave will be carried forward.
The creation of an alternative leave request system which meets the Clerk’s contract requirement to ‘take annual leave at times agreed with the Council’ was discussed. Cllrs took the view that taking Annual Leave is an administrative not a Council decision. It was agreed that going forward, the Clerk would notify the Personnel Cllrs in advance and within legal timeframe (workers must ask for holiday at least twice the number of days before as the amount they want to take off). The Clerk will alert Cllrs of the request via their WhatsApp group but also send an email. An absence of a response is to be considered an approval.
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Clerk Hours Worked & Remuneration
The update and proposals were discussed. The 26 March 2025 meeting of the Personnel Committee decided to recommend employing a new Clerk or two co-Clerks for a total of 15 hours per week when the current Clerk left, however the Clerk did not leave and the Clerk’s regular hours of 11 per week have not been changed. BPC did agree to 15 hours per week being worked from June to September. 15 hours per week is the average total weekly budgeted staff hours for 2025/26.
The Committee agreed to recommend that BPC pay for an extra 4 hours per week worked in October, and for an extra 4 hours per week worked in November, December, and January when the Clerk is not on annual leave. The annual leave payments will be paid based on the existing core hours of 11 per week. The hours will be reviewed after January.
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Performance Appraisal
An appraisal will be done with the Personnel Sub-Committee on 18 or 25 February at 7:30pm. Date to be confirmed.
The meeting closed at 21:18.