The following topics are derived from your questions, the Cheshire Regional Development Officer's (RDO) attendance at meetings - either with individual clerks, individual councillors, or indeed meetings at some Town and Parish Councils - and the Cheshire Quality Forum.  If you have any additional topics for display or discussion, please let the RDO know.

Must all of our councillors be elected?

For your first application, this is a clear no, however you do need to have at least 80% of your councillors to have been prepared to stand for election.

Once you are a Quality Council, then renewal does require 100% elected councillors.

This allows for a gradual improvement to ensure that you are genuinely engaging with your electorate.  After all, it is almost inconceivable that you are carrying out everything on the Application Form for Quality Status and your electorate still don't want to get involved!

We deliver 3 newsletters a year.  Why is this not enough?

Simply put because the criteria says so!  In addition, it is believed that quarterly contact with your electorate is the minimum required to ensure that you are informing and responding to your community properly.  It is worth pointing out that the criteria says "newsletter or other publication", therefore it is possible that you are already doing four, you just call one of the four your Annual Report!  This is only true if your Annual Report meets the criteria of "other publication" of course.

Our Parish Newsletter reports what we do monthly, so why do we need a separate newsletter?

You may not.  Assuming that this is a Parish Newsletter that is produced outside of the Parish Council and they already publish information provided by your council, there may be a way forward with them.  If you can persuade your Parish Newsletter committee to include contact details for all councillors and your clerk - at least four times per year - then this can be accepted as meeting the Newsletter criteria.

Remember that the Newsletter must inform on your council's activities, so the contact details are not enough.

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