As I write this week’s democracy direct, I am conscious that many of you will be working hard in the polling stations across the country and perhaps getting ready for a long night at the count. When you read this however, it will thankfully be all over! I voted in my local station earlier today and obviously had an appreciation of the work of the polling staff and the long hours involved. The vast majority of voters understandably don’t realise the effort and organisation that goes into setting up and running a polling station. Why should they? The way politicians from all parties have behaved before and during the campaign has dented peoples’ trust in our democratic system but you as public officials carry out your duties with the same high standards and integrity ensuring that our voting process is as secure and honest as it can be. You can all be very proud of your contribution in upholding all that is good with the UK system. Let’s hope whichever government is in place afterwards does us all justice and governs the country to the high standards you have set. We can hope…..!
As Wayne said last week, we had a Board meeting on 6 December. We reviewed the conference in Bristol and I’m pleased to say that the feedback was very good. Thank you to all who returned your evaluations. We have read them all and they will help shape the next event. There were some teething problems with the new venue as we know but the hotel has been responsive to our feedback. In the discussions that have ensured, they have offered us a better deal. So much so that we have decided to return there next year. The dates for your diary are 26 and 27 November 2020. The photos for the 2019 event are on the website.
We are also about to send out a specification for our training administration contract previously provided by Nottingham City Council. We already have interest from a number of reputable organisations. If your authority is interested in bidding for this work then please get in touch with our Training Director, Susan Biddle, as quickly as possible. Unfortunately however, the process will take a couple of months from start to finish and this will inevitably impact on the delivery of our training programme for 2020. We have therefore decided to pause our open programme until April 2020 to give the new provider the chance to get up and running and be inducted into our systems and processes. In the meantime, we can still respond to requests for our open programme courses from individual councils or from regions – please contact Susan if you wish to discuss this further.
There are some interesting posts on the members’ forum so please take a look. The following in particular need responses:
- Signature on register of interests forms
- Member Enquiry system
- Appointments Committee/Panel procedure
This will be the last Democracy Direct before the festive break. So I wish you all a very happy Christmas and new year. Thank you for your support. It’s been another great year for ADSO and we all look forward to next year.
All the very best to you all.