Parish Policies
Overview and Objectives
Policies set out our positive choices to show how the PCC:
- operates effectively
- promotes good governance and
- explains how we meet our legal responsibilities.
Selection of policies
As we are a small parish with few resources, we will select our polices using good practice advice and precedents from the Charity Commission, the Church of England, Salisbury Diocese and Parish Resources. We intend to draft and approve our selected policies by May 2026.
How to write and implement policies
We will follow good practice guidance as follows:
- Keep any and all policies as short as possible, ideally under one page.
- Policies set out strategic aims, with everything else in “procedures” in appendices
- Live within the policy or change it to reflect reality and resources available
- Be practical and allow for exceptions to our policy.
- Policies should be approved by the PCC and reviewed on a regular cycle
- The policy should state its next PCC review date (between 1 and 3 years)
- We will use policies positively and not use them to block our wider mission as a PCC.
| Governance Policies | ||
| Governance Structure – Committees | Selection, writing and implementation of PCC policies | Conflicts of Interest |
| Serious Incident Reporting | Trustees Responsibility Statement | Finance and accounting policies |
| Financial Reserves | Investments | Risk |
| Health & Safety | Parish Hall Fees | |
| Religious Policies | ||
| Baptism | Admission to Holy Communion | Marriage in Church after divorce |
| Interruptions to Worship | Funerals | Interments and burial of ashes |
| People Policies | ||
| Safeguarding | Recruitment and DBS checks | Complaints and Whistleblowing |
| Disciplinary Procedure | Grievance Procedure | Equal Opportunities |
| Lone Working | Bullying & Harassment | Domestic Abuse |
| Digital & Data Policies | ||
| Data Protection | Electoral Roll Privacy Notice | Privacy and Cookie Policy |
| Social Media |
| Physical World | ||
| Eco | Churchyard | Use of Buildings |
| Complaints and Grievance Policy | Complaints-and-Grievances-Procedure-2022-OTU-2 |
| Domestic Abuse | Harnham-Parish-Domestic-Abuse-Policy-Approved-June-2022 |