2024/25 academic year and beyond
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 delivered 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. We recommend new clerks undertake ILCA first, commence CiLCA after about a year in post and that you do not register for CiLCA until you have tackled a handful of the 30 learning outcomes so that you have given yourself time to familiarise yourself with what’s expected without undue time pressure. CiLCA will take at least 200 hours of study time.
CiLCA registrations are processed on a bi-monthly basis, the next on 2 June 2025 and 1 Aug 2025. After this there will be a new 2026 syllabus launched which will be open for registrations in Feb 2026. There will be a gap from 2 Aug 2025 to Feb 2026 when it will not be possible to register.
CiLCA mentoring for the 2024/25 academic year and beyond
Booking onto CiLCA mentoring
CiLCA mentoring takes place over 5 online 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, 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.
However, we have a free Introduction to CiLCA session arranged for Tues 10th June 2025, 6-7pm which may be more suitable to attend if you are looking to register for the 1 Aug 2025 intake. The timing of the sessions will be similar to the 2024/25 cohort.
Bookings should only be made by clerks in County Durham and Cleveland. For any enquiries email us at cdalc@durham.gov.uk.
We will provide CiLCA mentoring for the 2025/26 academic year but due to the change of syllabus this would require any candidates to have registered by 1 Aug 2025. Information to be updated on this page in July 2025.
Mentoring dates for 2024/25
Units 1, 2 & 3 have already taken place (Oct 2024 & Jan & Feb 2025).
Unit 4 Mon 2nd June 2025 at 6pm
Unit 5 Mon 14th July 2025 at 6pm
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). Will be repeated Sep 2025.
- Tues 5th Nov 2024 Finance/budgets (Unit 3). Will be repeated Nov 2025.
- Tues 3rd Dec 2024 Managing meetings(Unit 2). Will be repeated Nov/Dec 2025.
- Tues 20th May 2025 Managing Assets, Staff etc (Unit 4). Will be repeated spring 2026
- Mon 14th July 2025 Community Engagement (Unit 5) – this will be included as part of the Unit 5 mentoring.
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.