Weekly message from Colin Copus, Non-Executive Director

Firstly, I hope that your annual council meetings went okay. You are also probably well into your induction programmes, such an important process particularly for new councillors.

Levelling-Up
Something of interest for your councillors: the Secretary of State Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, will be questioned on the Government’s Levelling-Up plans in an evidence session with the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee at 4pm on Monday 13th or 14th June.  The session can be viewed here:

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/17/levelling-up-housing-and-communities-committee/news/171040/michael-gove-to-be-questioned-by-mps-on-levellingup-bill/

Publication
One of our Non-Exec directors, Professor Colin Copus’ book, ‘In Defence of Councillors’, is now available in paperback for a mere £20. A good read for all DSOs (Colin has written this week’s newsletter so he would say that). Order here:

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526162557/

Request for Monitoring Officers
If you are a DSO who is also a monitoring officer, could you please let us know by emailing info@adso.co.uk and let us know your name, your council and how long you have been a monitoring officer. If you’d be happy to chat about your work as an MO, please also let us know.

Conference season
The conference season is well and truly underway, and our chair John Austin had the pleasure of attending the Lawyers in Local Government Spring Conference in Durham last week. Our thanks to LLG for the invitation.

John has reported back that he attended some really interesting sessions on smarter cities, climate change, and the role of the elected mayor. There was also an excellent awards ceremony and dinner in the evening. The session on the elected mayor involved Jane Corbett, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet member at Liverpool City Council. Some of you will remember Jane on our excellent Q&A panel at our last conference.

Speaking of conferences, the Local Government Association Annual conference takes place in Harrogate on 28th – 30th June. Details can be found here:

https://www.local.gov.uk/lga-annual-conference-2022

ADSO will be present at the conference as part of a ‘Democracy Hub’ alongside such organisations as Lawyers in Local Government, the Centre for Governance & Scrutiny, the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Local Government Information Unit and Dem Soc. So, if your councillors are attending, please brief them beforehand to visit our stand.

Finally, please book your place and accommodation at our conference in November. You can do this via the following link: https://www.adso.co.uk/adso-conference-and-awards-ceremony-2022/

Colin Copus, ADSO Non-Executive Director

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