This Handbook

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What this handbook is

Collaborative

The content of this handbook is built collectively by the team at St Mary’s, based on what they find useful.

Evolving

Just because the handbook says something doesn’t mean we can’t change it – if we find a way to do something better then we should do that instead (and update the handbook).

Open

This handbook is intentionally open. The way we do something shouldn’t be a secret, and having this handbook open to anyone means that it’s easier for people to see the way we work.

The content of this handbook is also licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence, which means anyone is free to take our work and build on it as long as they refer back to this original handbook, and don’t do so commercially.

What this handbook isn’t

Something to blindly follow

This handbook exists as a series of guides and a place to document best practice, but it’s not something we should always follow without question. If you feel that something doesn’t apply in a particular situation, you’re still free to do things your own way instead.

A replacement for our policies

Whilst this handbook helps tell us how to do something our policies tell us why we are doing something. Policies are agreed by the PCC, and have a more rigorous approval and review process than content in the Handbook.

Where the Handbook and policies appear to disagree the policy takes precedence, and the Handbook should be edited to remove the ambiguity.