Cllr Keith Stevens, NALC's chair, attended an online meeting with SLCC and the Barclays Know Your Customer team 11 January 2024. Several previously reported technical issues have been addressed, and Barclays have also ring-fenced the known accounts experiencing persistent issues.

Barclays maintains it's standing advice, urging prompt responses from local councils to their letters from the bank and is exploring providing NALC and SLCC with a recommended response local councils can use. Also, Barclays will release a statement explaining the issue and how it was resolved, along with helpful links to relevant pages on their website.

While waiting times for phone calls have apparently decreases significantly on average, Barclays, acknowledges this has been a big problem for them and local council customers. During the meeting, Keith emphasised the banking issues faced by some local councils and Barclays have committed to providing us with details for who we should liaise with at Barclays now regarding these issues.

In response to numerous issues raised by local (parish and town) councils about high street banks, NALC has launched a webpage to help address those concerns - Banking (nalc.gov.uk)