A contract of employment is a legal requirement for all staff on their first day at work. Model contracts are available here with guidance.

What is the contract and why is it important?

A Written Statement of Employment Particulars (forming part of the contract) must be issued to new members of staff on the first day of employment (following amended legislation in March 2020). The contract sets out the terms of conditions of employment for staff. To ensure compliance with all statutory requirements, we would recommend using a NALC model contract and seeking legal advice when putting together the contract.

Model contracts

There are three documents from NALC relating to clerk contracts:

NALC Guidance note for Template and Model Contract of employment for Councils Feb 24. The council should refer to this accompanying set of guidance notes while drafting a contract, to ensure they understand the terms they are committing to in the contract, while reflecting what is appropriate for the role and the council.

NALC Model Contract of employment for Councils with Green Book terms Feb 24 – for clerks and officers. This has been drafted for NALC by Worknest HR and is endorsed by the Society of Local Council Clerks. NALC and the SLCC recommend councils offer enhanced terms aligning with best practice within the local government sector, which is defined by the Green Book terms and conditions which are incorporated in this contract. Offering good terms of employment supports recruitment and retention of a high-quality workforce, demonstrating that the council is a good employer which values its staff.

NALC Template Contract of employment for Councils with all options (Feb 24) – for other employees. This provides information on the statutory minimum provisions under employment legislaation to ensure awareness and compliance with at least minimum requirements. Councils have the option to offer enhanced terms and conditions appropriate to their resources, and the template shows where they might offer enhanced terms with clear recommendations from NALC to show how to align with Green Book terms or wider best practice.

Supporting policies

A number of policies are mentioned in the model contract so councils will need to either have those policies in place, or replace the reference to the policies. There is also reference to a staff handbook, which you could consider creating to have in place for the contract. There are NALC templates available for some of these policies, as well as various other template HR policies and guidance to help you have everything in place. Policies mentioned in the contracts include:

• Grievance and Disciplinary procedures | Template here
• Expenses policy | Template here
• Equalities/Equality policy | Template here
• Sickness absence policy | Template here
• Whistleblowing policy | Template here
• Maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies | Templates here

All NALC template policies are available here.* Other relevant policies mentioned in contracts include:

• Data Protection Policy and Employee privacy notice | Use the NALC GDPR Toolkit and template policies or the template Data Protection policy
• Pensions policy | Guidance in legal topic note 79 on staff pensions
• Health and Safety policy | Guidance here

A note on training in contracts

From April 2020, it is a requirement for contracts to include reference to any training which will be provided by the employer, and whether this will be paid for by the employer, or whether the employee must pay for some or all of it. It is usual that the council would pay for mandatory training required.

Many councils will anticipate their clerks to either hold, or to complete, the Certificate in Local Council Administration (CiLCA – the professional qualification). Part of the recruitment discussion may cover this. Please note that we do not recommend clerks attempt their CiLCA in the first 12 months of employment; it is a challenging qualification and clerks in their first 12 months may not be accepted on to a training programme.

If councils intend to make a CiLCA qualification, or similar, a mandatory requirement in the contract, we would suggest taking legal advice, either from a solicitor or reaching out to our Advice Service.

For more information

The Good Councillor’s guide to employment is a thorough resource for NALC with information about the council’s role as an employer.

We offer various bits of employment training (more information in the Councillor Development Framework) so keep an eye out for those courses.

If you need further support with salaries or contracts, then please contact DALC in the first instance, and our Advice Service will be happy to help. We can offer HR support through a local arrangement, or through NALC’s national HR service with Worknest. NALC strongly recommends that HR advice is sought by councils when drawing up a contract of employment.

*Please note that the NALC website requires a log-in. Your details are: 

Username: devonmember
Password: xagop77

NALC have updated the model contract of employment for clerks and officers, and have added a template contract of employment which can be used for other employees

NALC have updated the model contract of employment for clerks and officers, and have added a template contract of employment which can be used for other employees. Please note that this does not affect current employees; these documents are not intended to replace the contracts of existing employees. Changes to contracts of existing employees requires consultation and mutual consent; councils are advised to seek specialist advice before proceeding.

There are three documents in total:

NALC Model Contract of employment for Councils with Green Book terms Feb 24. This has been drafted for NALC by Worknest HR and is endorsed by the Society of Local Council Clerks. NALC and the SLCC recommend councils offer enhanced terms aligning with best practice within the local government sector, which is defined by the Green Book terms and conditions which are incorporated in this contract. Offering good terms of employment supports recruitment and retention of a high-quality workforce, demonstrating that the council is a good employer which values its staff.

NALC Template Contract of employment for Councils with all options (Feb 24). This provides information on the statutory minimum provisions under employment legislaation to ensure awareness and compliance with at least minimum requirements. Councils have the option to offer enhanced terms and conditions appropriate to their resources, and the template shows where they might offer enhanced terms with clear recommendations from NALC to show how to align with Green Book terms or wider best practice.

NALC Guidance note for Template and Model Contract of employment for Councils Feb 24. The council should refer to this accompanying set of guidance notes while drafting a contract, to ensure they understand the terms they are committing to in the contract, while reflecting what is appropriate for the role and the council.

Frequently asked questions

More resources

The employment section of our Knowledge Bank contains more information and resources to support the council as an employer.

The Good Councillor’s guide to employment is a thorough resource for NALC with information about the council’s role as an employer.

We offer various bits of employment training (more information in the Councillor Development Framework) so keep an eye out for those courses.

*Please note that the model contract and guidance was updated in February 2024 to tidy up typographical errors and add reference to One Voice Wales. 

The National Joint Council for Local Government Services (NJC) has come to an agreement on the 2023/24 pay award, applicable from 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2024.

The terms of the agreement include:

• With effect from 1 April 2023, for all spinal points to 43, the agreed award was a flat rate payment of £1,925. For all spinal points above that the award was 3.88%

NALC has produced a briefing on the 2023/24 pay award, with the updated salary scales, and that can be downloaded here.

For the sake of clarity, the £1925 is a payment made to the full time equivalent for each SCP and is then pro-rata for the hourly rate. Part-time clerks will want to view the hourly rates to find their new salary, which is then backdated from 1st April 2023.

**Please note, the pay award is applicable to employees on the NALC model contract**

Backpay for employees who have left since 1 April

The NJC recommend that: “If requested by an ex-employee to do so, we recommend that employers should pay any monies due to that employee from 1 April 2023 to the employee’s last day of employment.

When salary arrears are paid to ex-employees who were in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LPGS), the employer must inform its local LGPS fund.  Employers will need to amend the CARE and final pay figures (if the ex-employee has pre-April 2014 LGPS membership) accordingly.  Further detail is provided in section 15 of the HR guide and the Backdated Pay Award FAQs, which are available on the employer resources section of www.lgpsregs.org.”

Calculation of hourly pay

The calculation of hourly rates for local councils differs slightly to the calculation published by the NJC for principal councils, which has caused some confusion in the past. It is intended that next year, the calculation basis for local councils shall move to the approach recommended by the NJC so there will no longer be a marginal difference. More information is in the briefing above.

A council’s employees are entitled to annual leave, but how much and how can it be managed?

First of all, employees are legally entitled to annual leave. This applies even if they are part-time employees, although leave will be pro-rata. Council officers are required to be employed by the council and cannot be self-employed (this is official guidance from HMRC).

The statutory minimum annual leave is 5.6 weeks which may include the year’s bank holidays. However, employers can choose to offer more leave that the legal minimum so your contract of employment may specify something different, in which case that is what the employee is entitled to.

Contractual increases

If your contract includes the National Agreement on Pay and Conditions of Service of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services then these terms (the ‘Green Book’) will apply. This includes clerks on the NALC model contract, unless changes have been made. However, there have been some changes to the holiday entitlement in the last few years via the annual pay agreement which may have made these difficult to keep up with.

The NALC model contract specifies that (all leave is pro-rata):

In 2020/2021, an extra days leave was granted to all employees with less than 5 years continuous service. In 2022/23, an extra days leave was granted to all employees. So, for staff employed on the National Agreement, the terms will now be:

We recommend writing to staff to confirm their current leave allowance so there is a record of what staff are entitled to; you may also want to update your annual leave policy (a template NALC policy is available here).

Bank holidays

There are normally 8 bank holidays in the year, but there are years where an extra bank holiday is granted. For example, in 2023, there is an extra day’s bank holiday due to the King’s Coronation. When calculating the year’s leave allowance, make sure you are taking this into account.

Calculating leave

Staff employed on a part-time contract will need to have their leave entitlement calculated. Where staff work different hours every day, it may be easier to consider holiday entitlement as a number of hours per year. The figures can be calculated by totalling how many days leave a member of staff is entitled to as per their contract and dividing by 5, then multiplying by the number of hours worked. So, if an employee was entitled to 23 days annual leave, plus the 2 statutory days and the bank holidays (8 in 2024!) then you would use the following calculation:

23 + 2 + 8 = 33

33 ÷ 5 = 6.6

6.6 x …………… (hours worked per week) = ………………………… (annual leave entitlement in hours)

The Local Government Association has come to an agreement on the new rates of pay applicable from 1 April 2022

The Local Government Association has come to an agreement on the 2022/23 rates of pay after the unions met on 1 November and agreed to accept the offer. The terms of the agreement include:

• With effect from 1 April 2022, an increase of £1,925 on all NJC pay points 1 and above
• With effect from 1 April 2023, an increase of one day to all employees’ annual leave entitlement

NALC has produced updated pay scales* which can be downloaded here and will update its annual leave policy template to reflect these changes shortly.

*Please note that the hourly rates published by NALC differ from those published by the NJC for Principal Authorities as the calculation basis differs.

Important note: Backpay for employees who have left since 1 April

If requested by an ex-employee to do so, we recommend that employers should pay any monies due to that employee from 1 April 2022 to the employee’s last day of employment.

When salary arrears are paid to ex-employees who were in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LPGS), the employer must inform its local LGPS fund.  Employers will need to amend the CARE and final figures (if the ex-employee has pre-April 2014 LGPS membership) accordingly.  Further detail is provided in section 15 of the HR guide which is available on the employer resources section of www.lgpsregs.org.

Related links

E02-22 Pay Agreement 2022-23

Contracts of Employment and Salaries

Being a Good Employer 2016