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Bradley Stoke Town Council Office

The office work of Bradley Stoke Town Council started in a box in the front room of the Town Clerk in 1992 when there were only a few thousand residents and the town was still emerging. Fairly quickly the need was established for an office and a small one or two person unit in The Courtyard, Woodlands was leased (no 8), seven years later the Office moved to a slightly larger office (no7) and in 2004 took over the empty office (no 6) and merged the neighbouring offices into one space to cope with the increasing staff and equipment.

Download the flow chart showing the Office Structure from: Bradley Stoke Town Council Office Structure (22KB Excel Spreadsheet)

Now there is a busy vibrant office located in the heart of the Bradley Stoke Business centre in the north of the Town; with four full time and four part time dedicated members of staff. As has always been planned, when the town centre is developed and small shop and office units are available the Town Council Office will hopefully relocate to this central area. The planning application for the Town Centre is currently in with the Unitary Authority and could be competed by the end of 2008.

As Bradley Stoke has grown, the scope of work carried out by the BSTC Office has grown disproportionately; Council went from a Smaller Council Band B to a Larger Council Band C for accounting purposes and the Annual Audit was carried out on similar lines to that undertaken on the Unitary Authority. After much representation by NALC (National Association of Local Councils) the financial limits were uplifted and we find ourselves being audited on simpler lines. The responsibilities that go with running a growing financial organisation still stand and a dedicated Responsible Finance Officer role was implemented from 1 April 2006. Previously this had been part of the Town Clerk's role.

The first part time Assistant Town Clerk was employed to assist the Clerk with meetings and correspondence and simple book keeping; as the work grew she was joined by in 1998 by a part time bookkeeper/bookings clerk. When the Assistant Town Clerk left she was replaced, still by a part timer but with more hours. The Assistant Town Clerk has become the full time Deputy Town Clerk; the bookkeeper is now the Responsible Finance Officer with a full time assistant to handle the bookings for the three activity centres and associated facilities; and there are three busy multi tasking administrators - two part time and one full time to look after all the increasing range of administration for these areas. The Activity Centres are run by the Activity Centres Manager, with currently six full and part time Leisure Assistants and one maintenance man (and Van) looking after the residents and visitors who use our facilities.

Being a proactive Council with a duty of care to all brings new pressures in keeping up with all current legislation and we need fail safe systems in place. Our Health & Safety duty of care to staff, residents and visitors has become increasingly varied and important. We also have to make sure we are aware of and comply with all existing and new legislation eg the recent changes made to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, Freedom of Information Act and so forth.

The Bradley Stoke Activity Centres, Play Areas and Skate Facility are well used and the addition of the Bradley Stoke Jubilee Centre in 2002 has increased opportunities for community use. The Bradley Stoke Community Festival is in its fourth year and looks as though it will be even bigger next year in the light of all the anniversaries taking place, with a fourth Firework spectacular planned for November. These activities, in addition to our core work of Council Administration means that the keeping up with the provision of bus shelters, litter bins, dog bins, planning applications, grant applications, creating minutes from ad hoc meetings, maintenance, H&S checks, risk assessments, ordering of supplies, booking of buildings, accounts work, filing, newsletters, staff training and much more all needs efficient planning.

Considerable work has been carried out to make our Web Site up to date, exciting and informative resulting in third place in the Local Council's Review/Co-op Bank Communications Awards in September 2004 a highly commenced in 2005 and a place in the final five of the Website of the Year 11-50 Employees Category of the Sage/Daily Telegraph Business Awards. Bradley Stoke is part of the national curriculum and this is the first point of contact for thousands of students, it is also DDA friendly. Newsletters are regularly produced and distributed to every household, together with the Annual Report.

To cope with this necessary and proactive development, new staff have been taken on as the work developed, and the existing ones have been trained on where necessary. The town of Bradley Stoke is at virtual capacity now and so is the Bradley Stoke Town Council Office.