2025/6 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 delivered between Oct and April/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  1 Aug 2025.  Please note that after this there will be a new 2026 syllabus launched which will only be open for registrations in Feb 2026.  There will be a gap from 1 Aug 2025 to Feb 2026 when it will not be possible to register for CiLCA. 1 Aug 2025 entrants must also have arranged payment by that date.

 

CiLCA mentoring for the 2025/26 academic year

Booking onto CiLCA mentoring

CiLCA mentoring takes place over 5 online sessions between October 2025 and April 2026 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.

Bookings should only be made by clerks in County Durham and Cleveland.  If you are outside the area or have any enquiries please email us at cdalc@durham.gov.uk..

Mentoring dates for 2025/26

Units 1  Mon 29th Sep 2025 6pm

Unit 2  Mon 10th Nov 2025 6pm

Unit 3  Mon 12th Jan 2025 6pm

Unit 4 Mon 9th Mar 2025 6pm

Unit 5 Mon 13th Apr 2025 6pm

Future subject based training dates aligning with CiLCA units

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 and bookings will go live about 6-8 weeks prior to each course

• Tues 23rd Sep 2025           Local Councils: The basics (Unit 1).
• Thurs 23rd Oct 2025         Finance/budgets (Unit 3).
• Tues 4th Nov 2025             Managing meetings(Unit 2).
• Weds 25th Feb 2026          Managing Assets, Staff etc (Unit 4).
•                                                   Community Engagement (Unit 5) – this will be included as part of the Unit 5 mentoring on Mon 13th April.

 

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.