I know most of you will be preparing for the council elections and I wish you all the very best. It can be an exhausting time but it shows the very best of local government officers, not just elections and democratic services staff. I will be thinking of you all when I go to vote. There’s a bank holiday a few days after election day and I hope you manage to get some rest.
ADSO Chief Executive
You will hopefully have seen the advertisement for our very first Chief Executive. We are all very excited at ADSO HQ and we are already receiving applications and expressions of interest. It’s something we have been working towards for a while now and it’s great to see it come to fruition. If you know of anyone who you think fits the person specification, please encourage them to apply and / or email john.austin@adso.co.uk to arrange an informal chat.
ADSO CEO job description and person specification (PDF)
extension: pdf
ADSO Conference 2024 – The Slate – Warwick University
We are busy putting together another packed programme for this year’s conference and delegate bookings will open in May. We have selected an excellent purpose built conference venue for you to enjoy. We are offering an Early Bird member delegate fee of £275 plus VAT, inclusive of accommodation, representing great value for money. Look out for further details and book early as we are expecting places to go as quickly as they did last year.
What would you like to see next in our Webinar Programme?
We are offering some great topics for our free webinars. Following the very successful webinar on the Modern DSO, we have two further sessions planned before the summer break on tackling abuse and intimidation in politics and a mental health for councillors training taster. We are always keen to hear your thoughts on future webinar topics so please email Carl.Whistlecraft@adso.co.uk if there is something you would like to see in our future webinar programme.
Linked to the upcoming webinar on intimidation in politics is a Local Government Lawyer article on civility in public life:
Calls made for civility at upcoming elections, amid rise in abuse aimed at councillors
Draft Code of Practice on Good Governance for Statutory Officers
ADSO was very vocal in its comments on the recent consultation exercise on the draft code. This included advocating a name change for the title of Monitoring Officer to ‘Chief Governance Officer’ which was covered in a Local Government Lawyer article:
ADSO welcomes draft code of practice on good governance
Updated Statutory Guidance on Overview and Scrutiny
Some of you may not have seen the recently published updated guidance: Overview and scrutiny: statutory guidance for councils, combined authorities and combined county authorities. You can read more about this in a Local Government Lawyer article:
Government issues updated statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny
There is also a thread on the ADSO Members’ forum which you can contribute to:
New Statutory Guidance for O&S – April 2024
Have a good week everyone.
John Austin, ADSO