Weekly message from John Lynch, Director of Finance

Well the heatwave didn’t last long but hope you all managed to get a break.

School Appeals
As members will know, the temporary regulations to allow school appeals to take place virtually were due to end at the end of September, an extension to these has now been laid before Parliament requesting a further extension until 30 September 2022. The Regulations can be found here: The School Admissions (England) (Coronavirus) (Appeals Arrangements) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021 (legislation.gov.uk).

We will be holding the two webinars on School Appeals. On 30^th Sept ‘School Appeals: The Basics’ and on 10^th November ‘School Appeals: Best Practice’. See link: https://www.adso.co.uk/adso-training/webinar-programme/

Annual Conference
Speaking of bookings, don’t forget to book your place on our Annual Conference on 25^th and 26^th Nov this year which is being held virtually. Copies of all the material and webcasts from the conference will only be available to those who have booked a place.

https://www.adso.co.uk/events-3/adso-annual-conference-2021/

I also hope as many of you as possible will also join us for the 2021 ADSO Awards Ceremony which follows the AGM on 25th November which is free to attend for anyone.

AGM and Nomination of ADSO Directors
So the time is coming to think about this year’s AGM, which in itself will be a virtual one, run on the Zoom platform on Thursday 25 November 2021.  An invitation to that meeting will be sent to all paid up members in due course. The Articles of Association explain the process in full and are available at the following link:

You will see from this that there are six directors to be appointed each year – i.e. the Chair, Vice-Chair, Director of Finance, Director of Training, Director of Communications and the Company Secretary.  There are role profiles for each of these positions on the website under this link:

ADSO Governance

If you are interested in applying to become one of the directors you need to complete the Nomination Form which includes the deadline for submission of completed applications as midnight on 13 October 2021.

Member Benefits
Don’t forget that as part of your membership, you have use of the free financial advice offered by Lycett Law on a whole range of issues: Financial advice for members – ADSO

Fawcett Society Report
I was surprised to read from a report by the Fawcett Society that three quarters of local councils in England did not have formal policies for parental or maternal care for councillors. They also went on to say that gender equality on local councils will not exist until 2077 if increases in female councillors continue at the current rate. The proportion of councillors who were women was 34.9% in 2019 and 35.4% in 2021.

Forum
Things that caught my eye this week were:

• Wearing of masks
• e-petitions
• Change of Political Party
• Invitation to International Zoom Discussions

John Lynch, Director of Finance