We are really keen to crack on with progressing some exciting pieces of work as part of our Working in a Modern Democracy programme. Here’s an update from programme lead Carl Whistlecraft about what’s happening next, and how you can get involved.
Working with you to shape the future of local democracy
Our Modern Democracy programme is exploring how digital tools and culture, along with new approaches to citizen engagement and other issues, are changing our local democracy. Thank you to all our ADSO members who shared their insight and experiences with us in the first stage of the programme. This has given us rich learning about how ADSO (and others) can support the people who are working in our changing democracy, and the ways that we can work together with our colleagues, councillors and citizens.
Work is now underway to act on the recommendations from our first Working in a Modern Democracy report. The ADSO Board have identified some priority areas for action, which we are looking to develop into more detailed projects. There are new opportunities for you to get involved.
Professional development opportunities
An important feature of our engagement with you, our members, has been the importance of keeping the conversation going and looking at ways in which future work can provide opportunities for personal development. With this in mind, we have some new opportunities for you to become directly involved in progressing some of our Modern Democracy projects, during the next stages of our work.
We’re looking for ADSO members who are interested in directly managing a project, or who might like to be involved in assisting in a project, as part of your development, with our support. This is an ongoing programme and we will focus on different projects at different times. I can confirm that we are initially focusing on these areas:
- Looking at the core Democratic Services Officer role in more detail
- Developing ways to capture and showcase new and innovative practice
- Specifically looking at how digital technologies (including AI) are informing and influencing our practice
- Promoting the Democratic Services Officer role
- Working with our existing trainers to explore what our Modern Democracy learning means for our training programme
- Getting wider perspectives on how our local democracy is changing, from across the democracy sector, with a view to supporting our members and continuing to develop ADSO as an organisation
Whilst we have these immediate areas of priority, it does not mean that our other Modern Democracy report findings will be ignored. We recognise that everything you have told us is important, so we also welcome your involvement in the wider issues from our report.
How to get involved
If you are interested in directly managing a project, or supporting a project, please get in touch and we can arrange an informal chat. We can discuss what you would hope to achieve, time commitment and the support that you would need.
We are very much wanting this to be an inclusive approach that helps us drive our organisation forward, whilst hopefully supporting your personal development journey.
Please email us via info@adso.co.uk to express your interest. It’s helpful if you can use Modern Democracy projects as your subject line. Thank you.
We look forward to hearing from you.