I have just returned from the Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) Weekend School in Bristol. I was invited as ADSO Chair and was also delighted to accept an invitation to be part of the plenary Q&A panel on the first morning. I spoke about the challenges facing both lawyers and democratic services staff (including the Monitoring Officer role) and the need for both LLG and ADSO to work more closely together to support our members. I’m pleased to say that LLG are fully on board and that this joint working is already underway. The ADSO Board on 23 Marchwill be asked to agree a series of proposals to take this initiative forward. LLG also invited us to have a stand at the conference and it attracted some interest from the lawyers particularly in relation to the benefits of joint working and our qualifications. Thanks to John Lynch for staffing the stand on Thursday.
LLG launched the 2018 Monitoring Officer handbook at the conference. This is available to their members as an e book. It looks a very useful publication so I suggest you ask your MO (assuming they are LLG members) to contact LLG and arrange for access if they haven’t already.
The travelling does not stop however and I shall be packing my bags again this week to attend the SOLAR Conference in Glasgow on 15 and 16 March. Out joint working with them continues to develop. You may recall that we took part in a successful Autumn Conference with SOLAR last November and I’m pleased to say that Sue Keogh has been asked to run a workshop at the conference this week. Look out for updates on twitter.
Best wishes and have a good week