Nominations for Buckingham Palace Garden Party 2024
There are tickets available for a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace and we are welcoming nominations from our member councils for who should have one of these limited tickets.
An opportunity for DALC members to attend a Buckingham Palace Garden Party! Our National Association (NALC) is in receipt of 100 tickets to two Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace this year. We have been allocated 4 tickets (2 pairs) for the Party on Tuesday 21 May 2024. It is always a pleasure to be able to nominate individuals from our membership to attend!
We are therefore welcoming nominations from our members councils as to who should have one of these limited tickets. Please read below for more details.
This year, the palace advises that it wishes to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Commonwealth so please consider this when selecting nominees.
There are strict rules on the nomination process, so please read the following guidance:
- Nominated guests should be from within the council such as a long serving councillor, or a long serving clerk. They should recognise excellent contributions in their field, and in public service, voluntary or community work.
- Guests should NOT have previously attended a Garden Party. However, if the nominated individual was the accompanying guest (i.e. not the main guest) last time they attended, they may be nominated in their own right.
- All nominated guests must be over the age of 18 years and resident in the UK.
- All nominated guests should be accompanied unless they specifically request otherwise. Any accompanying person must be over the age of 18.
Please note there will be no parking facilities offered this year with the exception of disability badge (Blue Badge) holders who may apply for parking. Regrettably no exceptions will be allowed. Requests for disabled access should be entered on the nomination form as in previous years. An additional form will be included with the nominee’s invitation requesting details of their disability badge, upon receipt of which a parking label will be sent to the guest.
Under data protection legislation, an individual’s consent is required to process their personal data for the purpose of nominating them to attend a Garden Party. You need to obtain consent to process their personal data from all nominees prior to submitting the completed form.
As always there is a very tight deadline for submitting nominations. Please can nominations be made via this form by 2pm, Wednesday 21 February. We will not accept nominations after this time. Due to tight timescales and limited spaces, any incomplete or incorrect nomination forms will be rejected from the process.
The two successful nominees, and their guests, shall be notified in the afternoon on Wednesday 21 February. Nominees will be chosen at random i.e. via pulling names from a hat.
If you have any further questions, please do contact us.
Guidance on a ceremonial response to death
Sensitive – guidance on the council’s role in enacting a ceremonial response to death in the event of the death of a senior national figure.
While any plans for such an event will need to be fluid, there may be benefit in having an awareness of what may happen to help your council make a ceremonial response in a dignified manner. Councils must bear in mind that this is a sensitive topic and consider the need to act with discretion. There is no need for a formal decision so officers can make plans for the council’s response without taking it to a council meeting which avoids an insensitive discussion. We would encourage councils to resist speculation and rumour, which may have an impact on our sector’s credibility with other organisations.
Parish and town councils need not be the first to either break the news or respond to the news in their community. The community is likely to be better served by the council taking the time it needs to ensure a ceremonial response that is in line with suggested protocol.
It is worth remembering that officers now will have valuable experience from the events of September 2022 that will help guide a response, and there is no reason that any future event would be different. If you have any notes or reflections from that period, then you could always use those to update your plan. It may be worth revisiting the plan on occasion to update the names and positions of those who have been assigned tasks.
We always recommend that the best source of information is the NACO guidance on a ceremonial response to death but a few key points are mentioned below. Clerks are able to join NACO for free, so can register on their website for any other information.
Don’t get too caught up in bridge names; the code names were not used in 2022 and the bridge name was irrelevant.
For now, councils may want to focus on enjoying the early years of this reign.
It is likely that there will be an online book of condolence so there will be no need to provide one in your community. However, if councils want to provide a physical book of condolence in their community, then you could consider purchasing one in advance to have ready.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport publishes official flag flying guidance which councils will want to check at the time for guidance on when to lower flags and when to return them.
Members of the community may want to lay flowers and councils may designate a suitable area, alongside requesting that flowers are not wrapped in plastic.
Following the state funeral, flowers may be gathered and disposed of. If possible, flowers could be composted.
Council meetings can go ahead as planned during the period of mourning, although there will be an impact on notice periods for agendas. Local Government Act 1972 s.243 excludes days appointed for public mourning from the calculation of the three clear days’ notice. As none of the days of mourning should be used in calculating the notice period, the council may need to postpone a meeting until after the funeral has taken place.
In the event, NALC will provide their guidance on the dates of mourning which we will circulate to all our members as soon as it is available. As ever, when dates are calculated there can be some disagreement between different parties; we’d advise that councils follow official guidance they are given by an advisory body such as NALC or the SLCC.
There will be no requirement for town and parish councils to read a Proclamation but some of you may choose to do this. It is likely that at the time, suitable wording for a Proclamation will be issued and circulated to anyone who would like to read it. Please note that the Proclamation should not be read by a town and parish council until it has been read by the Palace; suitable timings will be provided when it happens.
You may want to add something to your website to mark the event. There is no set guidance for this, but you may consider what you feel your users would expect to see and set an appropriate timeframe for those changes to stay up.
Suggestions include:
- Message of sympathy by the mayor or chairman
- Pop up/homepage overwritten with a black page with a portrait of the senior figure who has passed.
- Links to more information such as: condolence books, donations, laying flowers (in accordance with the families wishes where relevant and when the information is available)
Similarly, your followers may expect to see a social media post acknowledging the event. If you have pre-existing scheduled social media posts, it may be sensible to review those posts to check whether they are all appropriate and cancel any scheduling.
Following the state funeral, anything on your website will need to be removed.
It is possible that the day of any State Funeral will also be a bank holiday; if this is announced then there will be guidance issued to employers to help them manage that.
If the council has civic events planned during the period of national mourning, then they may need to think carefully about whether to go ahead. This will very much be a local decision; the council may be guided by public mood, and their own feelings about whether it is necessary to continue with an event that risks negative publicity.
Some of your community may want to come together to pay their respects so you may also want to consider creating opportunities for this to happen. That might include gathering for a minute of silence in the village square, or organising a public viewing of television coverage.
Local councils may be invited to organise and encourage others to organise local ceremonies marking a National Moment of Reflection.
Organising these gatherings is entirely optional and if you do hold an event, you are free to devise your own form of wording to suit your own local needs. However, you may find that NACO and/or other bodies issue some suggested wording.
More information
The NACO website is available to all clerks and officers who can sign up for free membership.
The Lord Lieutenant of Devon’s Office will have local guidance for Devon.
The government website will be a useful resource as well as the Royal Family website.
You can also contact our Advice Service for guidance.
Remembrance Sunday
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Civic responsibilities
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