2024/25 academic year
You can find out more about CiLCA, the town and parish council sector’s benchmark qualification at SLCC | Certificate in Local Council Administration (CiLCA). This is a distance learning course for which there is some support provided through our locally arranged CiLCA mentoring which is a series of 5 online sessions arranged between Oct and May/June each academic year.
CiLCA is a Level 3 course which is equivalent to an A level and usually takes 200-300 hours of study. Registration costs £450 (for clerks at <£25,000 councils see note below) and there is a time restriction of 12 months for completion once registered. It is recommended that new clerks undertake ILCA first and commence CiLCA after a year in post.
CiLCA mentoring for the 2024/25 academic year
Booking onto CiLCA mentoring
CiLCA mentoring takes place over 5 sessions between October 2024 and May/June 2025 and for local council clerks/officers in County Durham or Cleveland there will be no charge for these 5 sessions, otherwise the cost is £200. Please click here to book on the 5 online mentoring sessions. By booking on you will receive email reminders from us with the log in details a few days before each event. If necessary, you can join us mid-year for these sessions and go round the cycle as many times as needed.
Bookings can only be made by clerks in County Durham and Cleveland. Other CiLCA students may be considered but in exceptional circumstances.
Mentoring dates for 2024/25
Unit 1 has already taken place (on 1st Oct 2024).
Unit 2 is scheduled for Tues 7 Jan 2025 at 6pm.
Future dates are agreed between the learners and the mentor at the previous session. To give you an idea of timings, last year Unit 3 – March, Unit 4 – April and Unit 5 – May.
Future subject based training dates
Alongside the mentoring sessions we organise a number of subject based courses, mostly delivered online. Online sessions cost £20 and in person training £24/£27/£30 depending on the size of the council.
The courses are also available to all clerks and councillors but are aligned with the CiLCA units, being the core knowledge for everyone involved in local councils.
Bookings for these courses must be made separately to the mentoring. To find out more, please use the links below.
- Tues 24th Sep 2024 Local Councils: The basics (Unit 1). Sorry but this has already happened.
- Tues 5th Nov 2024 Finance/budgets (Unit 3)
- Tues 3rd Dec 2024 Managing meetings(Unit 2)
- Managing Assets, Staff etc (Unit 4) date tbc but likely March 2025
- Community Engagement (Unit 5) date tbc but this session will be combined with the mentoring, likely May 2025
For Co Durham and Cleveland clerks of councils <£25,000 threshold
For clerks in County Durham and Cleveland, the County Training Partnership has agreed also to fund the cost of CiLCA registrations from clerks of councils under the £25,000 threshold and will be payable on successful completion of CiLCA. Please be in touch if you are interested as we would expect you to notify us in advance of registering.
If you’ve any queries, you are welcome to be in touch with us at cdalc@durham.gov.uk.