The weeks are whizzing by, the weather is getting warmer (at the moment anyway!) and the days are slowly becoming longer. Let’s hope we can all begin to enjoy the coming of spring very soon. For those with children, I hope you have managed to have a well-earned break during half term. Count the days before your little cherubs will be heading off to school again every weekday morning. Can you remember those times?
Remote meetings
Messages from MHCLG with regard to remote meetings are slowly becoming more encouraging. The Sunday Telegraph last week reported “Robert Jenrick, the Local Government secretary, is understood to be planning to change the law to enable virtual and hybrid meetings of local councils to become permanent”. This was a comment he made during a local government webinar and, although particularly related to the recent Handworth meeting, I think it gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic. However, nothing is certain, so ADSO and LLG are continuing with our legal proceedings for a declaratory judgement in the High Court. By the time you are reading this, we will have met with Counsel to discuss our submission. We will move as quickly as we can but of course we are in the hands of the court.
SLCC Practitioners’ Conference
I will be taking part in a session at the SLCC Practitioners’ Conference on 23 February to launch the Local Councils’ Toolkit. This is designed to support Parish and Town Council Clerks in their increasingly challenging roles. The Handworth Council meetings have brought local councils to the fore, particularly the behavioural issues of councillors. I am pleased to say that ADSO, along with LLG and SLCC, recognised this 2 years ago and we have been working collaboratively to support local clerks, including the production of the Toolkit, which will be available via the ADSO website shortly.
Regional meetings
I have really enjoyed my virtual journey around the country attending as many regional meetings as possible. It’s great to see that attendance and participation in these meetings are increasing. The quality of the agendas and the resultant discussions have been excellent, and I look forward to attending many more in 2021. If you haven’t attended your local meeting, give it a try. There is no travelling involved and I know you will find it useful.
The meetings coming up are:
- South East Region – 24th February at 2pm
- North West Region – 26th February at 10am
- East of England Region – 19th March at 10am
- North East , Yorkshire & Humberside Region – 1st April at 10am
Webinars
The ADSO Webinars are now underway and we have recently had two excellent sessions on the new model Code of Conduct. They were attended by almost 200 people. My thanks to Public-i for sponsoring these sessions. Our next webinar is being held on Wednesday 10 March (15:30-16:30) on the subject of Civic Support – “Come into my Parlour! – demystifying the management of civic office”. This will be led by Phil O’Brien who has 37 years’ experience in the field and is a valued supporter of ADSO. The event is also kindly sponsored by Link Support Services (UK) Ltd. Bookings can be made via the Webinar Programme page on the website and recordings of past webinars are also available on this page.
On the subject of webinars, LLG have kindly sent through details of the following:
LLG Brief: Path to Governance Failure, 24th February 12pm-1pm
Managing your governance risk – what governance and scrutiny lessons can be learned from the governance failings at Croydon Council and other authorities? Jacqui McKinlay from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny will be focussing on ‘governance risk characteristics’, sharing details of soon to be published research aimed at statutory officers. This work draws on the experience of a range of councils which experienced governance failings. She will be joined by Bethan Evans who will explore the lessons learnt from authorities such as Croydon and advise on Officer and members roles and responsibilities in avoiding ‘significant failings in leadership and management’. Register Here
Vaccine Programme
On a personal note, I had my ‘jab’ last week. Those of us of a certain age are now swapping stories of our experiences and whether we had side effects based on which of the two vaccines we had. “How sad” I hear you say – but it beats moaning about our aches and pains or the weather – for the moment anyway. On a serious note, my congratulations and thanks to all involved in the vaccine programme, particularly the volunteers. My visit to my local centre went like clockwork. Everybody was so polite and professional, and I was in and out in 5 minutes.
Members’ Forum
A look at the Members’ Forum this week has highlighted the following posts:
- Approved minutes with amendments
- Member Foreward in reports
- Weird and Wonderful Scrutiny Reviews
- Retention of meeting recordings – GDPR implications
- Chocolate Monitoring Committee
If that last one doesn’t get you heading off to the forum then nothing will!
Have a safe week everyone.
John Austin, Chair