Who is your clerk? Local Council Clerk Week: 10 – 14 June 2024

Do you know your parish community clerk? Do you know what they do?

This is the person who works with your councillors to make sure that Southwater Parish Council provides the services you need in your local neighbourhood. They run the council meetings to which you are invited, and are qualified in a range of disciplines to make sure the council runs properly and within the law.

They’ll be the ones writing to your local MP, liaising with the district and/or county council about changes to speed limits, car parking charges and potholes, applying for funding grants for local projects, researching complex planning issues, running the council’s finances and managing community buildings and events. Then they roll up their sleeves to lead volunteers to clean rivers, pick litter and fundraise for local projects. They’re good in a crisis too as seen when they helped to coordinate community efforts during the pandemic.

Clerks are professionals and serve around 10,000 local councils in England and Wales. These councils emerged in 1894 to give a democratic voice to local people and they’ve changed enormously in that time, particularly during the last 20 – 30 years. They are real place shapers and, today, many manage and maintain parks, sports facilities, skateparks and recreation grounds, play areas, allotments, community and youth centres, car parks, public toilets, cemeteries, street cleaning, run events and much more. Most of all clerks and councillors are advocates, the voice for their communities.

Whatever your local council is delivering for your community, your clerk will be at the heart of getting it done. They provide the services that we all notice the most in our neighbourhoods but, disappointingly, they’re often not properly recognised for just how much they do.

Clerks are celebrated in other countries and Local Council Clerk Week aims to help raise the profile of this important profession here and explain the the work clerks do on behalf of town, parish and community councils.

The video below will explain more.

For more information about clerks and the work of your local council, please contact us here or follow one of our social media channels, where you can find up-to date news, educational facts, help and more.