The Parish Council Website
From 31 March 2026 new government regulations came into force, requiring all Parish Councils to meet new IT (Information Technology) policies.
New Parish Council Email
As of the end of the 2025/26 financial year, the 2025 edition of the Practitioners’ Guide stated that all smaller authorities are required to have:
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a council-owned domain based official email address:
clerk@littlecomberton-pc.gov.uk -
a website that meets accessibility regulations
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an IT policy
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a reinforcement of compliance with UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and DPA (Data Processing Agreement) responsibilities.
These requirements are important because:
• this is the official domain for a Council
• it provides an elevated level of security
• it improves compliance and GDPR
• there are added benefits and security services
• it is more professional & improves authenticity of messages
• the “.gov.uk” can only be used by authorised organisations.
New Parish Council Website
As of 1st September, Worcestershire County Council withdrew their online facility ‘My Parish online,’ where the Council had, until then, been publishing essential council documents. Parish Council agendas, minutes & public documents relevant to the running of the Parish Council will now be available on the new Parish Council website. The cost of running and managing all these new systems now has to be met through the village precept, which is part of the local council tax allocated to Little Comberton. Training and development is ongoing but the new website can be found at:
https://littlecomberton-pc.gov.uk/
Document Storage
Documents relating to council business must be stored on secure UK based servers. In our case a village business has allocated secure access to a section of their server and will provide security and backup facilities within their own business model with zero cost to the Parish Council. We are particularly grateful for the generous support in both providing the facility and for the training and support provided.
The current Village Website and village email
As the village website does not store sensitive council data but serves as a local record of the village and its life, past and present, it will continue to be run on a voluntary basis and be funded by the Sports and Social committee. The new Parish Council site will hold all sensitive documents but will be linked from the village site to allow easy access. Likewise, the village email account will still be used to circulate relevant whole village news and events.
Further information about these important changes can be found via: