Question 1

What's the Procurement Act 2023 threshold above which a parish council has to run a tender?

Accepted Answer

For **services**, councils can direct-award contracts up to **£215,000** without going to formal procurement. For **construction works**, the threshold is **just over £5 million**. Below those numbers, the Act doesn't compel a tender — though most councils' own standing orders set the bar considerably lower. The thresholds are worth knowing because they're the upper limit; how a council chooses to procure below them is a local policy decision, not an Act requirement.

Question 2

My standing orders say "three quotes for anything over £500" — is that actually proportionate?

Accepted Answer

It's worth a periodic look. Standing orders that hard-wire three-quote rules at low values can create significant overhead — for the clerk running the process, and for the small local suppliers being asked to compete for very small pieces of work. The Procurement Act sets a generous ceiling (£215k for services), so standing orders have full latitude to set thresholds proportionate to the actual scale and risk of the work. Many councils' standing orders were written years ago and benefit from a periodic review against current circumstances.

Question 3

Do we even need to run a tender — what's the alternative?

Accepted Answer

Not always. Before reaching for a tender, three questions help test whether one is the right step: do you know broadly what you want done? Do you know roughly what it should cost? Is the expected budget over your threshold? If any of those answers is unclear, the work to do first is clarifying the brief, sounding out suppliers, and sense-checking the budget. Single-source appointments and "best value" routes are entirely legitimate below the thresholds, and a council that's done its homework can often appoint a known good supplier directly.

Question 4

What does running a tender actually cost — for the council and for suppliers?

Accepted Answer

More than councils tend to assume on both sides. A clerk often underestimates their own time on the exercise; running a proper tender end-to-end is days of work, not hours. On the supplier side, a small practice will commonly spend **£4–8k preparing a bid for a £40–80k contract**, and a bigger firm spends **£10–12k per bid expecting to win one in ten**. That cost is ultimately baked into every fee a supplier ever quotes. If the work doesn't justify the tender overhead, both sides lose — which is why proportionality matters as much as compliance.

Question 5

What are the three main routes for finding good suppliers?

Accepted Answer

**Frameworks** — pre-vetted lists of suppliers maintained by third-party organisations, with the procurement process partly pre-mapped. **Contracts Finder** — the government portal where any public-sector tender can be posted publicly. And a **curated short-list** — assembled by the council, ideally from suppliers it has already met or had recommended. Each has trade-offs, and the right route depends on how much time the council has, what kind of work is being commissioned, and how well known the local supplier base is.

Question 6

What's the case for and against using a procurement framework?

Accepted Answer

For: the procurement process is mapped out for you, suppliers are pre-vetted, and the thresholds tend to be more generous than typical council standing orders. Against: the people who sell frameworks operate in a commercially driven space and aren't always neutral about which framework is right for a given project; choosing the wrong framework or panel can quietly cost months. On one large public-sector project, two failed procurement exercises on the wrong panel are known to have eaten four months before the work could properly begin. Frameworks are a useful tool, with trade-offs worth weighing before defaulting to one.

Question 7

How do you build a "curated short-list" of suppliers?

Accepted Answer

A lot of the work happens before the tender opens. Meeting local practices, asking other clerks who they've worked with, and treating suppliers as sounding boards in the early stages of a project rather than as competitors at the end all help. A short-list of four to six suppliers the council knows are local, capable, and aligned with the project's values tends to produce stronger bids than a tender broadcast cold to anyone who happens to find it. The supplier relationship begins long before the contract is signed.

Question 8

How should we structure the tender brief itself?

Accepted Answer

A useful approach is to layer it from values down to detail. **Core values** of the project come first (what does the council care about?); then **project ambitions** (what success looks like); then **outputs** (deliverables); then **appointments required** (what specialists need to be in the team); then **policy context** (regulations and constraints). Common brief mistakes are the usual ones: too many separate documents, too long, inconsistent deliverables across the pack, ambiguous priorities. A clear, layered brief tends to be the single biggest predictor of a good response from a good supplier.

Question 9

What scoring scale should we use to evaluate quality on a tender?

Accepted Answer

A simple five-tier scale — poor, weak, acceptable, good, outstanding (or equivalent words) — works well in practice. The reason for not scoring out of 100 is that percentages tend to make "outstanding" feel mathematically unachievable, with bidders scoring in the 70s and 80s for what's actually excellent work. A five-tier scale forces evaluators to pick a band, which keeps scoring honest and easier to compare across the panel. The aim is for the top category to be one an evaluator might actually award.

Question 10

Why shouldn't we just pick the cheapest bid?

Accepted Answer

Lowest-price scoring can quietly skew every other bidder's cost score. If the cheapest bid scores 100% on cost and cost is meaningfully weighted, a single outlier — one bidder going in unrealistically low, by accident or design — can drag the rest of the field into the 60s and 70s on cost. The cheapest bidder may then win even with a weaker quality score, because no other bidder can mathematically catch up. There's a real risk that the council pays less in the line item and significantly more in rework, dispute, or sub-par delivery downstream.

Question 11

What is "deviation from mean" scoring, and when should we use it?

Accepted Answer

Instead of giving 100% of the cost score to the cheapest bid, you calculate the average price across all bids and award the highest cost score to the bid closest to that average. The further a bid sits from the mean — too high or too low — the lower its cost score. The logic is that suppliers who understand the work tend to price it within a similar range, while outliers are either being optimistic or haven't fully grasped the project. Deviation from mean is the route most often recommended for council procurements; lowest-price scoring tends to fit better only where the deliverable is genuinely commoditised.

Question 12

How much weight should cost have in the overall scoring?

Accepted Answer

On a **construction contract**, no more than around **70%** cost / 30% quality is a commonly recommended ceiling. On a **consultancy or design contract**, weightings as low as **5%** are used, and on some consultancy procurements councils take cost off the scoresheet entirely. The reason is that consultancy outcomes are determined more by judgement, experience and care than by price; the council is effectively choosing a partner rather than a commodity. A common pattern is to publish the budget upfront, take cost off the scoresheet, and use the bids to assess how each supplier would resource the project for the money the council has already said it has.

Question 13

What is the Big Yellow Book, and which edition is current?

Accepted Answer

The "Big Yellow Book" is *Arnold-Baker on Local Council Administration*, the standard reference for parish and town council clerks in England and Wales. It was originally written by Charles Arnold-Baker (MI6 officer turned barrister turned head of what's now NALC), then maintained by Paul Claydon, and is now in its 14th edition, authored by Roger Taylor of Wellers Law Group. The book pairs Roger Taylor's plain-ish-English legal interpretation in the chapter sections with the actual legislation (statutes and statutory instruments) at the back — which is what makes it more useful for the sector than reading legislation.gov.uk directly.

Question 14

How do I actually use the Big Yellow Book to look something up?

Accepted Answer

The pattern that works for almost any question is the same: start in the **index** at the back; it'll point you to a chapter section (e.g. 7.9 for quorum); that section gives the legal interpretation and a footnote pointing to the **statute** (e.g. 1972 Local Government Act, Schedule 12, paragraph 12); then flip to the appendix at the back of the book to read the legislation itself. Index → chapter → statute. Worth marking up the book with post-it notes for the spots you'll keep coming back to — the start of the chapters, the 1972 Local Government Act, and Schedule 12 are the obvious three.

Question 15

What's the quorum for a parish or town council meeting?

Accepted Answer

Three, or one-third of the total membership of the local council, whichever is the greater. That's chapter 7.9 in Arnold-Baker, referencing 1972 Local Government Act, Schedule 12, paragraph 12. The key phrase is *total membership*: vacancies don't change the quorum. If your council has 11 seats and one is vacant, the quorum is still calculated against 11.

Question 16

What's the quorum if my council has 10 councillors?

Accepted Answer

Four. A third of 10 is 3.33, and since you can't have a third of a councillor walk into the room, you round up. The legislation says *at least* one-third, so 3.33 means you need four bodies in the meeting.

Question 17

What's the quorum for a parish council committee?

Accepted Answer

For committees, you follow your standing orders or the terms of reference for that committee — not the Schedule 12 quorum that applies to full council. Practically, the minimum that works is three, because a quorum of two means the chair always has a casting vote and there's no real deliberation to be had.

Question 18

Does a parish council have to publish its register of interests on its own website?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Even though the monitoring officer at the principal authority is required to publish each councillor's register of interests on the principal authority's website, the local council *must also* publish it on its own website. That's chapter 7.12 in Arnold-Baker, referencing Localism Act 2011, Section 29. A simple link from your website to the principal authority's published register is fine — you don't need to mirror the full content.

Question 19

A councillor has changed jobs since they joined — does the register of interests need updating?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the responsibility for keeping it up to date sits with the councillor, not the clerk. In practice, plenty of clerks do a once-a-year nudge — sending each councillor a link to what's currently registered for them and asking them to update if anything has changed. It's optional, not a clerk duty, but it heads off the worst case of an out-of-date register sitting on the website unchallenged for years.

Question 20

Can a parish council contribute toward the cost of cutting the grass in the churchyard?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The relevant chapters are 25.2 and 33.3 to 33.5 (Chapter 33 has the wonderful title *Powers Relating to the Dead*), and the legislation is 1972 Local Government Act, Section 214 — which explicitly says that a parish council is a burial authority for this purpose, and Section 214(6) allows the council to contribute to the maintenance of an open churchyard. Section 215 adds the broader power for a burial authority to contribute toward the cost of providing or maintaining a cemetery.

Question 21

What's the six-month rule for councillor absence — six months or six meetings?

Accepted Answer

Six months, measured from the date of the last meeting they attended — not six missed meetings. If a councillor fails throughout six consecutive months to attend any council, committee, or sub-committee meeting (and the absence hasn't been approved by the council before the six months are up), the seat falls vacant automatically. That's chapter 7.13 in Arnold-Baker, referencing 1972 Local Government Act, Section 85. The subtlety matters most for councils that meet quarterly — missing a single meeting can put a councillor on the edge of the rule.

Question 22

What are the exceptions to the six-month rule?

Accepted Answer

There are three. The councillor has a statutory excuse — broadly, military service in war or emergency. The council approved the reason for the absence before the end of the six-month period. Or, during the period, the councillor attended in their capacity as the council's formally appointed representative at another qualifying body, such as a county association of local councils.

Question 23

Can a parish council have "any other business" on its agenda?

Accepted Answer

You can put AOB on the agenda, but you can't take a decision under it. The legislation requires the summons sent to councillors to *detail the business to be transacted*, and the courts have agreed that "any other business" doesn't constitute that kind of detail. So AOB can sit there as a slot for raising things, but anything that needs a vote has to be on a future agenda properly listed. In practice, leaving AOB on the agenda creates more temptation than it's worth.

Question 24

I've got an older edition of the Big Yellow Book — does it matter?

Accepted Answer

Mostly, no — most of what clerks look up sits in older legislation (the 1972 Local Government Act hasn't changed much) and the book's structure is essentially the same. Where you start to fall foul is recent legislation: the Procurement Act 2023 changes won't be in older editions, and the 2018 UK GDPR / Data Protection Act updates were the previous big gap. The 13th edition is fine for most lookups; just cross-check anything recent against legislation.gov.uk before relying on it.

Question 25

Why does year-end feel so much more stressful than the rest of the year?

Accepted Answer

Three things pile up at once. Pressure — partly from the council, partly self-imposed — about the deadlines that genuinely matter (legal dates, AGAR, audit prep). Capacity, because most clerks aren't full-time and the role doesn't expand to match the season. And perception: telling yourself it's going to be a difficult time will almost always make it one. There's a real pattern of clerks resigning in the summer, just after audit, which is what makes this worth paying attention to rather than just gritting your teeth through it.

Question 26

How do I prioritise when everything on the to-do list feels urgent?

Accepted Answer

Sort each task into three buckets: musts, shoulds, and coulds. Musts are non-negotiable — legal deadlines, audit requirements, the dates that don't move. Shoulds are important but flexible (and "should" tends to come loaded with guilt, so be careful not to let everything drift in there). Coulds are the nice-to-haves: the pretty border on the AGM poster, the extra polish. When the week is full, hold the line on musts, do the shoulds well enough, and let the coulds go. Good enough really is good enough.

Question 27

What's the best way to use time-blocking when life keeps interrupting?

Accepted Answer

The principle is to protect one or two non-negotiable focus slots in your day — turn off notifications, send the phone to voicemail, close the door — and then accept that the rest of the day will be reactive. The block itself can be whatever shape works for you: an hour, a Pomodoro 25-on / 5-off, whatever lets you concentrate. The mistake is over-engineering the calendar, then having a swing break at 10am and resenting the whole day. Build in genuine buffer time, because the swing always breaks.

Question 28

How many tasks should I aim to get done in a working day?

Accepted Answer

Three. At the start of the day (or the evening before) pick three priorities; anything beyond that is a bonus. A long to-do list creates its own kind of paralysis — you stare at it, can't decide where to begin, ask three people what's most important and get three different answers. Choosing three keeps the day moving and protects against the running-on-fumes feeling at 5pm of having worked hard but not finished anything.

Question 29

How do I tell a councillor or member of staff I can't be interrupted right now?

Accepted Answer

Be explicit and short. *"This morning I'm working on X — I won't be answering the phone or replying to messages, but I'll come back to you this afternoon."* People are far more accommodating than clerks tend to expect, as long as the boundary is clearly set and the commitment to come back is genuinely kept. Some version of *"I'll come back to you"* is the phrase to keep ready — it's gentle, it doesn't reject the request, and it buys back the focus the work actually needs.

Question 30

My hours are creeping up at year-end — how do I have a fair conversation with my council about it?

Accepted Answer

Start by being honest with the council about what you're actually putting in. One common arrangement is to keep a record of the extra hours during busy months (March, April, audit, extra meetings) and balance them back in the quieter months (August is the classic). Most councils, once they see the real numbers, are happy with that. If the hours aren't balancing out year-on-year, that's the moment to bring it to the council, the HR committee, or whatever staffing arrangement your council uses — not to grit your teeth for another season.

Question 31

Someone wants something from me right now — what's a polite way to push back?

Accepted Answer

*"I'd love to help — can I come back to you this afternoon / tomorrow / Monday, once I've finished X?"* That single sentence does most of the work. People generally don't mind waiting if there's a clear reason and a clear time. Note it down so you actually do come back; if something slips, message them again ("I'm still working on it, I'll be back to you by Wednesday"). Members of the public are often more grateful than expected — even if the answer is "I have to point you elsewhere", the fact of being come back to at all is the rare part.

Question 32

How do I stop my brain spiralling into worst-case thinking during a busy month?

Accepted Answer

Brains work a bit like magnets — they look for evidence to prove whatever you've told them. Wake up thinking "this is going to be a terrible day" and your brain quietly notices every irritation: the rain, the driver who cuts you up, the email that doesn't reply. Switch the framing in the morning — even just listing three small things to be thankful for — and the same brain starts noticing the small wins instead. It feels almost too simple to count as a technique, but it leans against a real evolutionary bias toward looking for threats.

Question 33

What's a quick mental reframe I can use when the to-do list feels overwhelming?

Accepted Answer

Swap "today I have to..." for "today I choose to...". It's a tiny linguistic shift that makes a surprisingly large difference. "Have to" implies pressure and no agency; "choose to" returns the sense of control. The same trick works for "I have to do everything" — reframe to "I will prioritise what matters most" or "I'll ask my assistant clerk to take this one." Each version reduces the load slightly without changing what actually needs doing.

Question 34

What is the stress cycle, and why does it need to be "completed"?

Accepted Answer

A stressful trigger fires off the body's old fight-flight-freeze-fawn response — the same one that used to help us run from a sabre-toothed beastie. The problem is, modern stress rarely involves running from anything, so the physical response gets stuck in the body. If it isn't released, it carries forward into the rest of the day, the week, the sleep that won't come. "Completing the cycle" means giving the body a small physical signal that the danger is over — a few minutes of movement, a deep exhale, a stretch — so the stress response actually finishes rather than just being pushed down.

Question 35

What's a quick reset I can do at my desk between two stressful tasks?

Accepted Answer

Three things, all about a minute each. Breathe in for a count of four and out for a count of six (a longer exhale than inhale signals "safe" to the nervous system). Shake out tension — the way a dog literally shakes itself off after a tense encounter — or, more office-appropriately, drop your shoulders from where they've crept up by your ears, and stretch. Then name what you're feeling, out loud or in your head: *"I'm feeling overwhelmed; this feels too much today."* Naming it tends to take some of the power out of it.

Question 36

I'm a perfectionist and I'm wearing myself out over a small accounting error. Is that worth it?

Accepted Answer

Almost certainly not. The story of the missing 50p — hours spent hunting it down, only to be gently told by a councillor that finding it would cost the council more in clerk-hours than the 50p was worth — is one most clerks have a version of. Year-end isn't graded on perfection; the AGAR can be crossed out and amended in front of the internal auditor and nobody ever comes back to say "you made a mistake on the form" if the figures all work out in the end. The headline is worth keeping pinned up somewhere: you don't have to do everything perfectly to get through year-end well.

Question 37

My council website feels like a ghost town. Where do I even start?

Accepted Answer

The biggest mindset shift is treating the website as a community engagement tool rather than just a place to meet legal publishing requirements. That means giving the homepage some heavy lifting to do — signposting visitors to the things they actually contact the council about — and steadily building up news posts, consultations, and content that reflect what the council is doing (not just what it's required to publish). The work isn't a single redesign; it's a habit of feeding the site with the kind of content people would actually return for.

Question 38

What's the most useful thing to put on a council homepage?

Accepted Answer

Signposting buttons for the topics the council gets contacted about most often — potholes, broken street lights, missed bin collections, planning, salt bins in winter, anything that comes up regularly in emails or phone calls. Around six is the right number to aim for. If the council is the right place, link to the relevant internal page; if it's the principal authority's job, link straight to their page. The point is the visitor lands at the right destination, not at a long explanation of who does what.

Question 39

What kinds of content should a council publish on the website beyond the legally required stuff?

Accepted Answer

Future projects, plans and goals; consultations linked to precept and budget planning; news about decisions the council has made; local groups and initiatives that residents can share for inclusion; community news and events. Members of the public almost never read the minutes, so anything the council wants residents to know needs a more accessible home than the minutes section. The bin-outside-the-shop story is the principle in miniature — small, visible decisions, written up plainly, build trust over time.

Question 40

How do I use Facebook well as a parish council?

Accepted Answer

The rule is: go where the audience is (Facebook), but always drive them back to the website. The council can't control what happens on Facebook, but it controls the website — so the website is where the full story, the polls, and the forms live. Facebook gets a short headline and a link; the website does the work. The audience is older than you might think — roughly 35 to 75. For younger residents, TikTok or Instagram matter, but only after Facebook is being run well; trying to do everything badly is worse than doing one channel well.

Question 41

Should we turn comments on or off on the council's Facebook page?

Accepted Answer

The default recommendation is to turn them off and use the page as outbound-only. Social media is 24/7 — someone can post something difficult at 2am, and the council doesn't have a comms team sitting there to respond. Unless there's a dedicated staff member with capacity to monitor and respond politely all day, the cost of leaving comments on is higher than the loss in reach. Residents can still discuss things in the village-wide Facebook group; the council just doesn't host that conversation.

Question 42

What's the right way to run an online consultation or poll?

Accepted Answer

Build the full picture on a page on the council's website — the context, the options, the cost implications, any visuals or concept designs — and add a form or poll on the same page. Then share a short headline and a link on Facebook, ideally posted at two or three different times of day so different audiences see it. After the consultation closes, write up the results as a follow-up news post and share that too. Engagement compounds because each post has a second and third bite of the cherry.

Question 43

How many responses do I need on a poll for it to be worth doing?

Accepted Answer

Don't obsess over numbers, and especially don't report results as percentages — most people have no idea how many residents the village has, so percentages quietly mislead. Post the actual numbers and be brave about it. A small parish that asks the community about replacing a £3,500 gate and gets 450 responses on a 50/50 split has done a good thing whether or not the council ends up following the result.

Question 44

Why shouldn't we use SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or Microsoft Forms?

Accepted Answer

None of them meet the website accessibility regulations, and all three send the council's data to a third-party platform the council doesn't control. For users who rely on screen readers or other assistive technology, those tools create real barriers — which means engagement effectively excludes part of the community. The alternative is a proper web form on the council's own site (a built-in form builder, or a form module added to whatever platform the council uses) so the form is accessible, the data stays with the council, and follow-up is much easier.

Question 45

Can we just upload a Word document or PDF as a "form" for residents to fill in?

Accepted Answer

No — and it's one of the most common ways councils accidentally create barriers. A Word file can't be filled in online; a PDF is a locked document; there's no submission mechanism for either. From the resident's point of view, they're being asked to download a document, print it, somehow get it back to you, and hope. Web forms — ideally mobile-optimised — are the only way to make engagement easy. More than 85% of parish and town council website visitors arrive on a phone, often in the evening, often sitting on the sofa.

Question 46

Are WhatsApp groups a good way for a council to engage with residents?

Accepted Answer

For broadcast or decision-making, no. Group WhatsApp shares every member's mobile number with every other member — a UK GDPR exposure the council doesn't always realise it's signed up for — and there's no moderation, no edit log, and no audit trail. WhatsApp is fine as a one-to-one channel ("WhatsApp the clerk"), or for councillors coordinating logistics, but it's not a place to gather views or take decisions. Group conversations belong on the website, where the council owns the data and the moderation.

Question 47

How can navigation and a "mega menu" turn the website into more of a community hub?

Accepted Answer

Most council websites have menus that grow over time into hard-to-navigate trees. A mega-navigation — a single large menu that columnises content — lets visitors see everything at once: regulatory information in one column, services in another, with council responsibilities and principal-authority responsibilities clearly separated. Beyond that, the site can become a genuine community hub by listing local events (not just council meetings), highlighting local groups, and adding small touches like a map of where the dog bins and benches are. None of it is rock and roll, but it's the sort of thing residents notice.

Question 48

Is it worth running an email newsletter — and what's a realistic frequency?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the bar is lower than most councils think. Tools like MailChimp, SendInBlue and MailPoet are GDPR-compliant when set up correctly and have free tiers good enough for parish-council volumes; a paid MailChimp plan that comfortably handles a parish-sized list runs around £120 a year. Once a month is a perfectly reasonable cadence — don't promise weekly unless the resource is there to deliver. Every parish or town council can find three or four things worth writing about in any given month.

Question 49

Why do councils get outdoor spaces for tweens and teens wrong?

Accepted Answer

The simplest answer is that they get forgotten about. When a local authority or parish council looks at an open space and starts thinking about a playground, the default mental model usually stops at age 11 or 12. Everything beyond that age — the kids who still want to be outside, who still want to be active, who still want a reason to leave the screens behind — falls into a gap nobody specifically designs for. The fix isn't a single new piece of equipment; it's noticing that this group exists and is part of who the space is meant to serve.

Question 50

How do tweens and teens play differently from younger children?

Accepted Answer

The biology is doing something. From around age 8, the onset of puberty shifts how this group moves: they're growing faster, sleeping more, and their sense of balance changes as their bodies change. Play stops being purely about running around and starts being about social context — who's watching, who's hanging out, who's performing for whom. They still want to be active, but the equipment that worked at age six (the slide, the small climbing frame, the bouncy spring animal) suddenly looks childish. Spaces designed without this in mind get abandoned by the age group very quickly.

Question 51

How much physical activity should young people actually be doing — and how many are hitting that?

Accepted Answer

The World Health Organization recommends around 60 minutes of moderate activity per day for this age group, training all major muscle groups and motor skills. The reality is much further off than most people realise: globally, only around 23% of 11–17 year-olds meet that minimum. The headline matters because designing outdoor spaces that actually appeal to older kids isn't a "nice to have" — it's one of the levers that nudges that percentage up.

Question 52

What four things actually motivate tweens and teens to be active outdoors?

Accepted Answer

KOMPAN's Play Institute ran a major study in cooperation with the University of Southern Denmark, using GPS and activity trackers to see what tweens actually did in playgrounds (not what they said they liked). Four motivators came out on top: ball games, areas away from the main playground, climbing, and a combination of active participation and spectatorship — performing for and watching each other. Once you see those four, a lot of the design choices stop feeling like guesses and start feeling like answers to specific questions.

Question 53

Why do tweens and teens want areas away from the main playground?

Accepted Answer

Because the main playground reads as a children's space — and this age group is doing the work of *not being a child* every day. A separate area, often outside the fenced playground itself, signals "this is for me, not the toddlers". It doesn't need to be elaborate; a piece of equipment, some seating, or a corner with a different feel is often enough. The independence — being out of direct adult sightlines, having their own zone — is doing as much work as the equipment.

Question 54

What is the Make Space for Girls initiative?

Accepted Answer

It's a campaign that's been quietly reshaping how the sector talks about playground design. The starting observation: when councils think of older-children play space, they tend to default to a football pitch — which by then mostly serves boys. Girls aren't being deliberately excluded, they're just falling outside the frame of what gets designed. Make Space for Girls is pushing the conversation toward outdoor space that actively works for teenage girls, not just space they can technically use.

Question 55

What kinds of equipment work well for engaging teenage girls?

Accepted Answer

The same KOMPAN research, sliced for girls specifically, lights up a few categories: swings (especially basket swings and group swings), trim trails, climbing, ball games beyond football, and spinning equipment. The pattern is that these are pieces that support being sociable while being active — moving and chatting at the same time, sharing a piece of equipment with friends, not having to look directly at each other to interact.

Question 56

Why are swings so good for older children, and what kinds work best?

Accepted Answer

Swings are one of the simplest, cheapest interventions for this age group, and they're routinely under-deployed. Basket swings hold three or four bodies at once, lying down or sitting; they're inclusive (very little core strength needed), they're social, and they invite kids to stay on for far longer than a single-seat swing. Flat swings sit kids side by side for conversation. Group swings — where everyone swings together with feet meeting in the middle — work especially well in larger outdoor spaces. The unlock is to think about swing placement beyond the fenced toddler playground.

Question 57

What is open-ended (non-prescriptive) play, and why does it matter for older kids?

Accepted Answer

Younger children's play equipment tends to be highly prescriptive — this is a slide, you slide down it; this is a spring animal, you bounce on it. Older kids reject that. They want pieces of equipment that don't tell them what to do, so they can decide for themselves what the piece is for: a structure to sit on, hang off, perform on, or just lean against to chat. Designing for tweens and teens means leaving room for that interpretation — what looks underspecified to an adult often reads as freedom to the kids actually using it.

Question 58

Why are seating and hangout spaces just as important as play equipment for older children?

Accepted Answer

A big part of how this group "plays" is actually socialising — sitting, chatting, watching each other, being part of a group. Creative seating, hammocks, planters that double as benches, swings used as seats: pieces of equipment that invite hanging out are part of the activity, not a separate amenity. Treating seating as an afterthought is part of why older kids stop using a space; treating it as a design feature in its own right is part of how to bring them back.

Question 59

What's the single biggest mindset shift councils should make when designing outdoor spaces for tweens and teens?

Accepted Answer

Stop thinking of them as "older children who need a shelter to gather under." The instinct to provide a shelter — a roof, a bench, somewhere out of the rain — is often the only nod councils make toward this age group, and on its own it's not enough. Get creative with outdoor spaces. Design areas that invite movement and socialising at the same time, away from the toddler equipment, in places that signal *this was thought about for you*.

Question 60

Should internal audits be done face-to-face or remotely?

Accepted Answer

Face-to-face is the strong preference. A remote audit doesn't really meet the underlying requirements: the auditor can't inspect the physical minute book, can't look through the actual records, and can't read the clerk's body language when a question is asked. Remote works only as a follow-up arrangement — for councils the auditor has already worked with face-to-face in the past and built a relationship with. For a first audit, expect (and arrange for) someone in the room.

Question 61

Which Practitioner's Guide applies to this year's internal audit?

Accepted Answer

The version compulsory for the year-ends now being audited is the one published in March 2025. A new 2026 edition is on the way, but it only becomes compulsory for the following financial year. It's worth being aware of where the new guide is heading — to see the direction of travel and where the sector is going — but the council still has to do what's in the guide it's actually got, not what's coming next.

Question 62

What will the internal auditor actually test for Assertion 10?

Accepted Answer

Very little more than: has the council done the four things Assertion 10 requires? It's a high-level check, not a deep audit. The reason is that internal auditors aren't the regulators of the underlying legislation — FOI, GDPR, accessibility regulations — so they're not in a position to go beyond confirming that the council has the right pieces in place. Internal-auditor guidance for Assertion 10 is being written and will be published, but the testing itself will stay at that high level.

Question 63

Why does it matter whether councillors use personal or council email addresses?

Accepted Answer

A council's actions, messages and emails are subject to Freedom of Information requests and subject access requests by any member of the public. If a councillor is using their personal account for council business, that personal account — alongside everything else in it, from tennis bookings to family photos — falls within the scope of those requests, and the ICO has strong powers to pursue them. Where councillors use a council email account, the clerk can answer an FOI directly from the web-stored emails through the back-end of the website, without needing to see anyone's phone. When a councillor leaves, the account can simply be switched off — closing the door on former councillors continuing to send mail as if they were still in post. The point is protecting both the council and the individual.

Question 64

Does the council need to issue councillors and staff their own mobile devices?

Accepted Answer

The right framing isn't device-vs-device — it's about centralised control of the email account. If the council can grant and revoke access to the mail at any time, what hardware someone happens to read it on becomes a much smaller question. The work to do is in the management of the email, not in the handset.