Holidays and Reflection
I have just returned from a week away and feel so much better for it and hope everyone has time off planned during the summer and recess (does that still properly exist!).
I read a book on holiday by Sir Rodney Brooke, the former Chief Executive of West Yorks Metropolitan County Council and Westminster City Council. Before Blackpool, I worked at Wyre Borough Council and the Committee Secretariat Manager there, Arthur Warden, was a great mentor to me and used to work with Sir Rodney at West Yorkshire, who was a great mentor to him. Sir Rodney was initially Director of Administration before becoming Chief Executive.
The book is called ‘The Winding Stair’ and gives a great insight to why we do the things we do now in governance and how the LGA 72 came into being. How the proposals from the Redcliffe-Maud Report published in 1969 proposing mainly unitary authorities, were broadly accepted by the Labour government, but they were set aside by the Conservative government elected in 1970 (who preferred the two-tier system we largely ended up with).
West Yorkshire itself was a County Met (which no longer exist) and have some similarities to the ever-increasing combined authorities. As Sir Rodney says “..plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing). Anyway, it is a book I recommend for those that cannot completely switch off from work. Sir Rodney had a very colourful career and it also gives a great insight to local government of the day.
ADSO Conference 23/ 24 November 2023
We are now fully booked for this year’s conference and are running a waiting list. If you have already booked on, we recommend you book your hotel room at the venue using the discount code as soon as possible if you haven’t already done so. Details are in the link above.
We have some inspiring Chief Executives presenting including Caroline Green, Chief Executive of Oxford City Council; Mike Jackson, Chief Executive of London Boroughs of Richmond and Wandsworth; and Martin Reeves, the Chief Executive at Oxfordshire County Council. Martin is also on our Question Time panel with Karen Bradford, Chief Executive at South Kesteven District Council amongst others. They will be speaking about their experiences about working in different types of authorities, governance models and working with members.
IIMC Symposium/VvG Conference – subsidy for attendance
Details of the Symposium and VvG Conference for September 2023 are now available on the ADSO website. ADSO is subsidising up to 15 members for £400 each to attend and we expect demand to exceed supply so get you expressions of interest in early.
Report from East of England Region
We’re delighted to have a report from our 3 East of England reps this week which you can access below. It gives a summary of the last meeting where NOC, emerging trends in DS job descriptions/ staff grading and effective scrutiny were discussed as well as thoughts on plans to introduce an annual face-to-face meeting for the region.
East of England Region report – July 2023
extension: pdf
Thanks to Emma, Debbie and Sarah for their report.
Work Experience week/ Good News
Our colleagues at LLG ran a national work experience week in early July but it is not just aspiring lawyers who have been seeking placements at councils. As part of the ‘sharing good news’ request we put out in a recent Democracy Matters, we were pleased to hear from Sarah Gale at Hertsmere Borough Council, Sarah shared the following with us:
“We were recently joined by an eager and enthusiastic young lady on a work experience placement. We all shared with her the work undertaken in our allocated Committees, got her to read a couple of agendas and suggested she could take The Political Compass test.
I had the idea to compile some Chair’s notes and do some role playing. I then whisked her off into the Council Chamber, voted her in as The Chair of the Personnel Committee while unethically voting that I was the whole Committee – I played multiple roles of Head of Personnel, Deputy Head, Members and so on – by the end of it I had to remind myself who I actually was before the multiple personalities came into being – I have to say that plain old Sarah Gale seemed so dull afterwards!
Despite not being given the notes beforehand to practice, she was excellent and undertook the role with aplomb and a quiet confidence. It got me thinking that it would be nice to share best practice on how we can give our work experience placements the best possible side of Democratic Services – as it can present as a bit dull if they are just given things to read or we talk ‘at’ them for hours on end.”
Let us know your thoughts over on the Members Forum and as Sarah says, ‘share that good practice’. Any other ‘good news’ to share for Democracy Matters then then please get in touch.
That’s all for this week, hope you enjoy any time off planned and come back refreshed and ready for the months ahead.
Mark Towers, ADSO Company Secretary