Where did the summer go? Hardly much of a break these days for Democratic Services. Planning and Licensing Committees carry on through August, as do many other meetings. Nevertheless, I do hope you’ve all managed to get some rest and a break with those close to you over the summer.
ADSO conference
We are thrilled that the conference is fully booked already for November and we have now closed the waiting list. We’re sorry for those colleagues who wanted to come to this year’s conference but were unable to book a place in time. We will review the conference arrangements at the December Board meeting including the size of the venue for next year’s conference given the high level of interest this year (which we hope continues). We are finalising the speakers, presentations and workshops over the coming weeks.
ADSO awards
We have received an excellent number of submissions for this year’s awards in all three categories and the shortlisting and interview process is underway. Good luck to all those nominated and it is, once again, fantastic to see so much talent in our sector.
ADSO Board meeting
The ADSO Board met on Friday 8th September and we had an excellent attendance from the regions. Sam Bailey gave a really interesting presentation about the equalities work that the London Branch have been doing and the Board agreed to take forward the key recommendations made to advance this important work across the wider membership.
ADSO currently has 1,507 members; the highest it has ever been. We are an association ‘on the up’. Thank you to all of you for your ongoing support.
We are reviewing the process for members moving between Councils and what this means for their unused membership. We want the process to be fair to all and easy to administer. Watch this space for further information.
We said our sad ‘cheerios’ (but hopefully not farewell) to our wonderful Communications Director, Joanna Boaler, who has decided to take a break from the Board. Joanna has been managing many things in her time on the Board including the website and all of ADSO’s social media arrangements and she has done a terrific job. We hope to welcome Joanna back to the Board one day but in the meantime, we will be looking to appoint a new Communications Director, so if you are interested in this role, we’d love to hear from you.
Role of the Monitoring Officer – call for evidence
ADSO has set up a Monitoring Officers Group with James McLaughlin as chair. This is open to both MOs and Deputies. It was set up in recognition of the growth in the number of MOs with democratic services/governance backgrounds. We met last week and discussed the recent LGIU call for evidence, in conjunction with Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) and Browne Jacobson solicitors. Relevant information can be found in the following link.
https://lgiu.org/workstream/local-democracy-research-centre/the-role-of-the-monitoring-officer/
We would like as many people as possible to respond to this call for evidence, particularly if you are an MO/Deputy with a democratic services/governance background. It’s important that the voice of democratic services is heard in the debate, particularly to emphasise that the skills and experience of DSOs lend themselves perfectly to the modern-day MO role.
Peter Sass, ADSO Vice Chair