This is my first newsletter since I came into post; I therefore, thought it might be helpful to introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me. So as it says above, I am Joanna Boaler and I am the Director of Communications. In addition to my role on the ADSO Board, I have worked at Essex County Council (ECC) for over 16 years in various democratic service type roles and before that I had a stint working for MPs. I have been in my current post, Head of Democracy and Transparency, since 2017, looking after not only the democratic side, by also information governance and statutory information requests. I am the ECC’s Statutory Scrutiny Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer. I have a fantastic team and although I find the juggle of life a challenge, I do enjoy it as there is no such thing as a typical day!
I do hope that everyone is well and you are all managing to get respite from/enjoy the recent heat. I am hoping that when you read this I might be on leave, it has been a hectic few months for us all and I have found it hard juggling work and two under-fives… I came back from maternity leave early due to COVID-19 and I haven’t yet had a day since March that I haven’t been on call or picked up my emails, so a break is long overdue. So if I am on leave, I will focus on just being mummy for a few days…
I know that the other Directors have mentioned this regularly, but I just wanted to also say well done; none of us could have prepared for the last few months and the way that we have all worked and what we have achieved in such a small time has been phenomenal. I have seen first-hand how my team and our members and appeals panel members have made such a change to the way they work; if this had been planned, we would have still been working on the project plan… perhaps a lesson for us all.
With this hard work in mind, I am delighted to say we have had a record number of entries for the ADSO Awards 2020! It is clearly testament to all your hard work, well done all. I have had a sneak peek at the entries and they are of a high standard and really showcase how hard you have worked and how innovative you have all been, this is a moment for us all to stop, look back and reflect on how good our profession is, I am so proud to say I work in Democratic Services. Peter Sass, Vice-Chair was due to chair the judging panel but has stepped down from that role as both of his authorities have submitted entries. John Lynch, Director of Finance has kindly agreed to chair the panel in his place. Peter will play no part in the judging process.
It’s now been almost five months since we left our Council Offices and started to hold committees virtually. Although many of us have found better attendance by councillors, there may be some councillors who just haven’t attended a meeting because they don’t sit on any committees apart from Council and you haven’t held one yet or they were unable to attend on that day. If your Council have not agreed a dispensation to Section 85(1) of the Local Government Act 1972, (which states that any councillor who does not attend a meeting during any continuous period of six months automatically loses office) you should check if there are any members who could fall foul of this requirement. The Government have not suspended this obligation, so a councillor would lose their seat if they had not attended a meeting within six months.
You may have noticed a few changes to the website recently. Sarah Hawkins, ADSO’s Administrative Officer and I have been working hard to update the content and make it ready for the new accessibility standards. Work has taken place to make sure that all our website is fully accessible, and we have published our accessibility statement. I know you will also be doing this at your own authority, but if you don’t know anything about it, you can find out more on the Government’s website accessibility page.
Many members don’t use the website or read these newsletters, if you are reading this, you are one of the members who do. So please could I ask you to encourage colleagues to read the newsletter and participate on the forum, you can learn so much that will help you in your day-to-day work. I have had many problems solved over the years by asking a question on the forum. We are also on three social media channels, so if you use Twitter, Linked-in or Facebook please like or follow us.
The last thing I wanted to mention, was about Local Government Reform, I like many of you are now working on this, supporting my members in preparing for the highly anticipated White Paper, to be published in September. Many of you have already gone through this process, but for those who haven’t, me included, it is a daunting prospect. To know that the place you have worked for so long might not be in existence in a few years presents mixed emotions. However, if the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, we can rise to the challenge and work to ensure we do our best to preserve democracy and make the very best of the situation. It is an opportunity for us to stretch ourselves and learn new things. It will be challenging, but as usual we will work hard and together with colleagues outside of our own authorities for the greater good, let’s leave the politicians to do the squabbling and we can just, provide the sage advice…
Have a fantastic week everyone and as John said last week, if you get the opportunity to have a break, enjoy it.
Joanna Boaler, Director of Communications