Durham Local Councils Charter

 The charter created an agreement on how they would work together for the benefit of the community and was developed in January 2010 in partnership by the County Council and the County Durham Association of Local Councils (CDALC), the umbrella organisation for the majority of parish and town councils in the county.

A recent review of the Charter in 2019 has simplified the agreement, recognising that the two tiers work together in partnership in many ways on a day to day basis, and the new Charter simply identifies three principles to guide the working relationship.

Download a copy of the new revised  Local councils charter (PDF) [227KB] .

The three Principles are summarised as follows:

Communication

 Providing representation from each sector at partnership meetings to ensure each sector can feed in views and share information.

Co-operation

Taking a joint approach in the way in which the two tiers work to strengthen communities and improve people's lives.

Consultation

Sharing the responsibility of consulting with the public through consultation with local councils and communicating views from a grass roots level, on decisions that affect the lives of local people.