A week gone, two weeks work done

As we near the end of January it is fair to say that life for the WLLG team continues to be mighty busy. We’ve all had manic weeks at work and with cuts to make and services to keep going, and even improve, and less staff to do it all things don’t look like they’re going to slow down any time soon.

The big news story this week was not Eric Pickles describing local authorities as immoral over council tax but the debate over the benefits cap. People I work with find the debate about the benefits cap deeply frustrating, feeling that there is little or nothing to be gained, for example, by turfing single mothers (who make up a large proportion of those in our social housing) out of their homes just to save some money on the benefits bill. These feelings were shared and brilliantly summarised on the not so big society blog. As the excellent Ermintrude2 points out:

Politics of envy is easy but it is ignoble. By encouraging the population to envy those who have less rather than those who have more (i.e. the class of politicians) they are diverting our attention from the real battles we should be fighting.

However, when I got home and had a chat with Mrs WLLG about all this she made the point that whilst I might understand the intricacies of the benefits system for the normal member of the public this seems ridiculous and we should be more willing to identify those examples which just aren’t right. The debate will continue – and not just in the WLLG household!

Meanwhile, on the issue of Eric Pickles and Council Tax morality this press release from Surrey Council caught our attention:

Surrey County Council is set to take a stand and save the county from a financial black hole by declining the Coalition’s council tax freeze.

The council’s Cabinet is set to discuss proposing the authority reject the Government’s freeze because it would lead to a £70m financial black hole over five years. The sum is equivalent to wiping out Surrey’s road maintenance budget for more than two years.

The Government has offered all councils a one-off grant of 2.5% for 2012/13 if they freeze council tax for another year. But it means that Surrey would be £14m down in every subsequent year when the one-year grant ends.

Well put sir!

We do like the Guardian Local Government Network so imagine our surprise when we found an article written by the authors of this fine blog up there. Discussing the way councils interact with bloggers we mentioned the case of a Barnet blogger who the council had apparently tried to shut down. Twitter tells us that there is some dispute over the veracity of the story so, as is our usual style, we’d prefer to focus on the substance of our argument and if we got any facts wrong we can only apologise. The rest of it still stands:

Whether or not the law could be interpreted in this way, local authorities are not going to last long if they use the tactic of threatening to prosecute anyone who disagrees with them. Rather, councils need to think carefully about how they should engage with bloggers in their area.

Some blogs are like newspapers; they are well read, and base their success on raising and commenting on real issues that their readers care about. They influence and inform, and take an interest on behalf of others in their community. Aren’t these exactly the sort of people councils would want to engage with, even – or especially – when they are being critical?

Not every blogger is worth responding to: there are many out there who are pure vitriol and should be avoided. Why not ignore them? Those that are mad won’t be influencing anyone, and by taking them to court or responding to them publicly, councils are at risk of giving them more publicity than they deserve.

Some of us were at Govcamp 2012 just a week ago and whilst time will pass and memories may fade thankfully there are hundreds of really good summaries all over blog land. We linked to some of them on our post this week and one of the non-attendees amongst us was taken with this post from a self-described ‘suit’ which has convinced them to make a special effort to attend similar events in the future. After all, if those who aren’t especially technical but understand the value of it don’t go then they’ll miss on being a part of something which seems eminently positive.

We’ve spoken about non-jobs from time to time on this blog and every now and again we check in with the wonderful taxpayers alliance ‘non-job of the week’ section. This week they are upset about a Strategic Director, a Head of Communications (apparently, the problem is both that they are needed but bad at their job and that they are not needed) and some Business Improvement Advisors (apparently they should have already improved the business?!?). I almost feel sorry for the TPA; with less jobs around and lots of people being made redundant it must get harder and harder for them to find new jobs to get really upset about!

So much happens each week and we miss most of it so if you see anything that we should include please drop us a line.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

On the way to a meeting?

I’m not sure if hit US TV show the West Wing quite counts as ‘retro’ yet but either way it certainly was unexpected when it popped into my mind on the way to my fifth meeting of the day.

The scene that sprang to mind was one where the hyperactive Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, is scheduled for an early morning meeting with someone from NASA. He goes to meeting under duress from his ever faithful assistant Donna and does his best to get out of there as quick as he can. When confronted about his lack of interest in the meeting he lays a little bit of intellectual smack down on the poor NASA administrator before commenting:

I prepare even for meetings I don’t want to go to. I wasn’t improvising. You guys are lost in space.

If we forget the awful space pun (Aaron Sorkin on an off day me thinks) the rest of his comment really resonates with me.

Ask yourself this question: How many times have you had a busy week and thought to yourself, I’ll just skip reading the papers for that meeting and work it out as I go? I know I’ve done it and I can state with cast iron certainty that nearly every single person I have sat in a meeting with has also done so at one time or another. Indeed, I have heard one manager tell me that she didn’t have time to read the papers for a meeting because she had real work to do.

Written like that it can sound quite stark but there is a part of me that feels just a little guilty when I’m sitting at my desk  just, well, reading.

There are of course contributory factors to this in local government. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have received papers for a meeting that are so long that reading them has obviously been designed as an optional extra. Either that or the 50 page paper has been ‘tabled’, and thus sent at 10:30 in advance of the 11am meeting.

What is needed, in my humble opinion, is a little bit of discipline from all involved. Discipline from meeting attendees to read, and think about, the papers before a meeting and discipline from paper writers to prepare concise, interesting and punctual documents in advance of each meeting.

And, whilst this piece seems a little soap-boxy the discipline does matter. Next time you are in a meeting, try and add up the annual salary of everyone in the room. Divide it by 16oo or so and that is the cost of the meeting: the numbers will shock you! If you are going to get that level of expensive talent all in one place at the same time then you might as well make the most of it and as the old aphorism goes: ‘if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’

Likewise, if you don’t have time to read the papers in advance of the meeting you probably don’t have time for the meeting.

It’s not rocket science (I thank you) and I might be alone in this but if you also share this tendency please do join with me in taking a leaf out of Josh Lyman’s book and really prepare for your meetings: even the ones you don’t want to go to!

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at: welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Guest post alert, and this pleases us.  As regular readers will know, WLLG Towers is home to more than one brain, but even between us all we find a fair few corners of the local government world about which we know pitifully small amounts.  If you happen to have some thoughts to share about any such corner then please send them in to us at welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com, as did today’s fantastic guest blogger DSO.  Enjoy!

In those heady days after the last general election, the coalition government sat down and hammered out a document, The Coalition: our programme for government, subtitled “Freedom Fairness Responsibility”. Included in the proposals for local government was a sentence which met with cheers from many local councillors: “We will abolish the Standards Board regime.”

Now, the Standards Board regime might have had a lot of reasons to be disliked, but it would never have been established if there hadn’t been a need for some oversight of ethical standards in the conduct of local councillors. The vast majority had no trouble sticking to the Code of conduct although they might have resented the necessity of legislating requirements to treat people with respect, not bullying and not to abuse their position for personal gain.

The real problems came from those determined to breach it on principle and from the complicated framework for dealing with complaints: investigations could drag on for months, there was secrecy concerning what information was seen and by whom, and no one was ever satisfied with the outcome of a Standards Committee hearing. Some of these criticisms were addressed when the regime was overhauled in 2008, transferring most of the work to local councils to speed up the process and bring local knowledge into play, but at the same time increasing costs for the local council. Everything had to be filtered through a first-stage committee meeting which could consider only evidence from the complainant and, based on this one-sided view, had to decide what to do next: investigate or drop it. An authority in the southwest received more than 800 complaints from one resident, and had to meet to decide what to do with each of them as the legislation didn’t allow the Monitoring Officer any discretion to dismiss clearly vexatious complaints.The announcement to abolish the standards regime met with little interest from the media and public, joy from councillors, and shock from many officers who felt that a code of conduct offered them some protection from bullying – parish council clerks in particular are at risk as they are often the sole employee and feel their job is at risk if they complain. Following lobbying by legal professionals and Standards Committees up and down the country, the House of Lords added a host of last-minute changes and the government backed down on its initial hard line approach and delivered some poorly-drafted legislation.  The following mess comes into effect on 1 July 2012:

-          Councils have a duty to promote and maintain high ethical standards and must adopt a code of conduct. Unlike previous regimes, this is a local code which must embody the so-called “Nolan Principles” (selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership – though not the principles of respect for others, duty to uphold the law, stewardship and personal judgement) and a requirement to declare interests. The wording of the code is up to each council to decide, and it can include anything else the local council thinks is important enough to be added. The Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (ACSeS) has sensibly been developing a model code to try to get some kind of coherent national picture so what is deemed acceptable by one authority is not forbidden by their immediate neighbours, and councillors who serve in multiple tiers of local government aren’t trying to juggle different codes all the time.

-          Councillors currently sign up to abide by the code of conduct as part of their acceptance of office, but now the code of conduct will be a separate document to sign and it’s no longer mandatory.  Will there be situations where the majority of councillors have signed up to a local code but others haven’t? How will complaints about the non-signatories be handled? Can they be dealt with if the person hasn’t signed up to abide by it?

-          Town and parish councils must also decide whether to sign up to the district council’s or unitary authority’s framework for investigating and addressing breaches, but this also isn’t mandatory, so one town/parish councillor can complain about another, the DC/UA has to go to the time and (taxpayer’s) expense of investigating, and the town/parish council might ultimately decide to ignore any sanctions imposed because it has decided not to cooperate.

-          Standards Committees, now optional, will be subject to proportionality rules, that is, the composition of the committee will reflect the political composition of the whole Council, so the majority group, which by default of being the largest group and forming the administration tends to attract the majority of complaints, will hold the majority of seats on the Standards Committee.

-          The responsibility to decide what to do about complaints will rest primarily with the Monitoring Officer and an Independent Person, a member of public unconnected to the council, councillors or political parties, but who is open to being lobbied by all parties in each complaint.  The Monitoring Officer must “seek the views” of this Independent Person when deciding what to do with a complaint, but doesn’t actually have to take any notice of it. The good news is that letting the Monitoring Officer rather than a committee decide should speed up the process and see minor complaints dismissed quickly. The bad news is that this is a lot of responsibility for an officer who could be subject to pressure from councillors or more senior officers to drop a particular matter.

-          Councillors must declare their own financial (pecuniary) interests and “other” interests (yet to be defined by the Secretary of State, hopefully with more coherence than the existing standards provisions) in a register made available for public inspection and on the Council’s website. They must also declare the interests of their spouse or civil partner and that goes onto the website too, even if that person has nothing to do with local government. Quite understandably councillors are up in arms at this, and pointing out that it will lead to a lot of resignations, particularly at town and parish council level where there already is a challenge to fill vacancies. (Devil’s advocate asks: “But aren’t their pecuniary interests linked to their spouse’s?”)

-          The register of interests must be completed “within 28 days of being elected or co-opted” but the new legislation dropped the requirement to keep it up to date. Also, since the new arrangements come into effect on 1 July 2012, after local elections, there isn’t any requirement for councillors midway through their term at that date to switch to the new system until they are next elected or co-opted.

-          If you’re a councillor and have registered your interests and they’re online, then you no longer need to declare them aloud at meetings. A real bonus for the public (and the Democratic Services Officer taking minutes!), who the government seems to expect will have read all registers of interest before going to a meeting.

-          If you are a councillor with a pecuniary interest on the website (even if you haven’t declared it aloud), you must leave the meeting room whenever something related to that item appears on the agenda…but only if your council has put this requirement in its standing orders. Under the 2008 arrangements, councillors with prejudicial interests could speak during public speaking time, then had to leave the room for the rest of the debate.  This seemed a fair compromise as often the councillor had local knowledge which would assist the committee with its decision-making. Now they are banned from saying anything, but unless the council has amended its standing orders to require a member with a pecuniary interest to withdraw, that councillor can still sit at the meeting table and try to influence a decision about their own planning application – without speaking of course.

-          If you wilfully fail to declare your interests, it’s a criminal matter and must be referred to the Police (whose are less than overjoyed to be tasked with chasing up failures to declare interests at meetings), but the onus is on the complainant to prove that it was reasonable for the councillor to know of the interest and that he/she wilfully failed to declare it.

I admit bias as an officer who has seen bullying councillors and the effect that they have on staff morale, but I’ve also seen excellent councillors who have been left reeling after baseless complaints have been made about them, and I have seen some resign rather than make themselves a target for further “conduct” complaints from anyone who disagrees with their politics.  I’ve read details of many serious cases of clearly corrupt councillors whose behaviour shows why a code of conduct is needed to reassure the public that most councillors would never stoop to such behaviour. What I cannot find out much about is what the public think about the new standards legislation. It seems to excite those on the inside in local government, but what about the public who elect their councillors to represent them?  What can they do if their councillor won’t sign up to follow a code and then can’t be complained about? Will councils see a two-tier system between those members who have agreed to uphold standards and those who refuse to sign and can be rude, bullying and reckless within their role (as long as they don’t get caught wilfully failing to declare an interest)?

So who wins? Councillors? They are free from the previous regime but bound by a mishmash of confusing and half-thought-out rules and regulations (unless they choose not to sign up to it). Officers?  Those who manage standards work can find themselves in an uncomfortable position if pressure is put on them to dismiss cases which could make senior councillors or the council itself look bad, and all officers are no longer to be protected from bullying. The public? It seems that the intention of Localism is that misconduct will be dealt with at the ballot box, but four years can be a very long time to wait.

Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility makes a nice subtitle, but it’s unclear how any of these words can be applied to the mess that is the new ethical standards regime.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Photo by David Pearson (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpea/)

Wow!  What an end to the week last week!  For those of you who didn’t know, last Friday saw one or more from the WLLG team making our way to the Microsoft offices in London Victoria for the fifth UK Gov Camp, an ‘unconference’ with no set agenda, no guarantees and no limits.  The participants set the agenda themselves, pitching their ideas for things they’d like to present or like to talk about, and those who find at least one other person to speak with do just that.  The wonderful ‘rule of two feet‘, which means no-one gets offended if someone leaves a session before the end, allows participants to never find themselves in a useless session and to put it simply, great things happen.

We strongly recommend you take a look at some examples of blogs (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) , twitter conversations, pictures and anything else that have been shared since the end of the first session and throughout the two day camp any time you are lacking a little motivation or inspiration.  In fact, the nigh-on legendary Dan Slee thought it would be good for participants to share some of their initial thoughts and opinions of the day, so to follow suit here are ten things we learnt from #ukgc12.

People care

No, really, they do.  If they didn’t care about delivering great public services then there is simply no way they would have invested their own time and sometimes money to trek halfway across the country in order to sit in a building talking with other public service people.  There is no way at all that these conversations would be passionate and inspiring, and there is no way that many of these would lead directly to projects, concepts and work which would benefit more than those directly taking part.

People knock public servants in ever increasing numbers and sometimes there are occasions when they are right to do so.  However, if the attendees of those two days truly make up any percentage of staff then there is a lot of heart and energy being put in up and down the country to improve the lot for the rest of the population; you can’t put a price on this.

Innovators do more than tech

Historically, govcamps evolved from a need to look at digital innovation and explore how tech could enhance the work of the public sector.  This was certainly represented this year, with one person mentioning that there was enough tech in there to power NASA (and ironically for an event held in a Microsoft building, most of it appeared to be running on some form of iOS), but it wasn’t exclusively so.

Sessions were run on delivering the news, local democracy and social care among others, with conversations taking place in hallways, corridors, seated areas, cubby holes and nooks and crannies that Microsoft probably didn’t know they had.  Wherever you looked, real people were making real links and discussing real solutions to real problems.  This wasn’t debate about a theoretical response to a hypothetical problem – innovation was happening all around; that’s what happens when that many great minds start bumping into each other.

In some ways localgov is behind the curve, in others not so much

Sitting in one session I found myself amazed at some of the work being shared and accepted as commonplace by some of the people there; things that in my own fairly advanced council we are only beginning to consider.  some things move very quickly indeed, and it is surprising how in some areas, organisations which I would consider ponderous actually seem to act with speed and agility which belies their bureaucratic structures and history.

Then of course there are other areas where local authorities not only have all the cards but know exactly how to play them.  We may not always play them correctly and sometimes luck has its own way of influencing things, but councils should not despair if they find themselves in the wake of others; let’s understand our strengths and work on our weaknesses.

Even the most adventurous are still somewhat risk-averse

ukgc12 was attended by many of those whom I consider innovators – those who will not accept impossibility or mediocrity, those who ask for forgiveness rather than permission and see opportunity around every PID.  However, even these wonderful individuals have their own pressure points, those things which cause them to lean back a little and speak the dreaded words ‘let’s just think about this for a moment…’.

The built-in small ‘c’ conservatism is a hard habit to shake, and some are still absolutely wedded to their own ideas of what is right and correct.  The unwillingness to use software which wasn’t built in-house and which isn’t tied to at least a five year support contract means some shy away from what others see as agile and useful tools.  We may all want what is best, but our definitions of best still vary significantly at times.

It is possible to be excited by work

Having done a similar job for more years than I care to remember, there are days when it’s easy to feel as if you are going through the motions.  Each ‘new’ project which is suggested by a consultant or as a result of a manager attending another course is actually a rehash of something that was tried years ago, just with the letter ‘e’ or ‘i’ put before it.  Excitement was something which went out as Chaka Khan came in.

But actually it needn’t be that way.  After spending just a short time in the company of those who are attacking their work as if they are worried they won’t be able to achieve all of their plans in the space of one short career, the feeling is infectious.  As Mary Poppins once said, if you find the element of fun then the work becomes a game; not in a trivial way, but in an enjoyable way.  Find the fun and you may just find yourself looking forward to the office once more.

Talking is good, doing is better

Look around your average conference and you will no doubt see a dozen people who are able to talk a good talk, who can charm others and who appear to know the right words to say at any point in a conversation.  See them at the next conference and they’ll probably be saying the same things but to different people, differing only in their opinions if they’ve read someone else setting out a different and trendy opinion.

The real people who you want to speak to are those who don’t just talk the talk but code the code; those who understand both what is needed and have an idea for how to make it actually happen.  ukgc12 wasn’t about getting together and sharing some lovely ideas before going back to the day jobs; it was about setting up opportunities to actually do something as a result of what you learned and who you connected with.  If you went and you are yet to have considered something you want to do or do differently, perhaps you should set aside some time to do so.

Twitter makes networking so much easier

In the good old days, if you wanted to connect with someone you would swap business cards after a quick networking chat before contacting them a few days later to stay in touch and perhaps set up a meeting.  With the wonderful world of Twitter, all of a sudden this process became obsolete.

With Twitter you are able to nigh-on instantly connect with someone and be arranging meet-ups and swapping ideas before the day has even finished.  In fact, you don’t even have to meet them face to face, it can all be done with a few tweets.  Of course, that may not be as much fun, so a good way of combining things might be to tweet someone whom you have wanted to meet and know is in attendance to arrange to meet over lunch or between sessions; in short, networking in a Twitter-friendly crowd has made things a whole lot easier.

Beta.gov looks cool, but…

As you may have heard, on the Friday Mike Bracken fantastically gave us the chance to hear about the next generation of government website, which promises to take the great but slightly archaic Direct.gov and bring it up to speed with a slicker design, modern features and simplified and streamlined content.  This is no small task, and looks like it is well on the way to producing a truly improved user experience.

Perhaps it’s the Veruca Salt in me, but all of the day’s discussion had pushed me to the position where I wanted more.  The concept and the screenshots all looked great, and I can only begin to comprehend the gargantuan task ahead to pull all of those CMS’s and resources into a single, coherent web presence.  With that caveat, I still looked on and wondered whether or not, by the time it is finally developed, beta.gov might be a 2012 solution unfit for the 2015 world.  Hopefully these fears will prove unfounded.

Staying anonymous is hard

Long time readers will understand why it is that we at WLLG Towers feel the need to hide behind our well disguised alter-ego, but it’s at events like this that things become difficult.  Throughout the entire camp, we found ourselves walking past people without a nod whom we regularly debate on Twitter, listening to speakers we massively respect but who don’t know our day-to-day identities and wishing we could reveal ourselves (although perhaps without the required trip to an empty phone box to change out of our Clarke Kent clothes).  We even chatted to plenty of these people over the course of the camp directly, struggling but succeeding in not giving the game away.

To all these people – sorry!  Perhaps one day we might follow the lead of FOIMan and come out of our hiding places, but for now we’ll stick to as many Twitter conversations, blog comments and e-mails that you can throw at us, and hope that you enjoy speaking and working with the real us’s as much as the fictional ones.

I only work part time

And finally, I only do part of a job.  On the negative side, I realised that I only spend a fraction of my time doing those things which I want to do – coming up with these sorts of projects, having these conversations and both inspiring and being inspired by others.  The rest of the time is spent on the more mundane but still necessary tasks needed to keep my own little corner of local government ticking over.

But from a more positive angle, for some of my role I really have achieved what Mary Poppins said: for some of the time I really have found the fun and the game.  As long as I remember these more fun and interesting projects whenever I find myself filling in RAG reports or writing long and comprehensive risk assessments, perhaps I’ll realise that I’m actually quite lucky indeed.

So thanks to everyone who took part or helped organise this or any other govcamp – we hope to be able to see more of you at the next one!

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Eric being moral?

We’re not really the sort of people who have New Year’s resolutions but when the excellent Guardian Local Government Network asked us to name one we said that we were going to be nicer to Eric Pickles in 2012. And you know what; we meant it.

Unfortunately, much like the diet, alcohol ban, gym attendance and intention to spend less money on cheesy Wotsits this New Year’s resolution has not made it to February.

So what caused our feelings towards Mr Pickles to turn so rapidly? Before showing the headline it is probably worth reminding people that Mr Pickles has offered every council money equivalent to a 2.5% increase in council tax and in return the council has to commit not to increase their tax this year. So back to our outrage…

One headline can sum it up:

Councils have ‘moral duty’ on tax – Eric Pickles.

A moral duty?!? As in this is an absolute? As in this is correct and any other interpretation is thus immoral?

Are you kidding me?

I can understand that there are things in the act of Government that can be described as moral; the starting of wars, protection of the poor, a commitment to the environment maybe but how on earth does the decision to raise council tax EVER classify as a moral decision?

Ok, so let’s withhold judgement for a moment. What could Mr Pickles have been referring to that makes this a ‘moral’ issue? I assume that Mr Pickles argument is that it is immoral to ask for money from the public (more tax) when the Government are offering them the money without recourse to the public.

A fair point as far as it goes. The flip side is that this money will be coming from the public coffers in one way or another so is it worse to take it in council tax or worse to take it from the Government tax pot, or indeed just from the public debt? Indeed, one might argue that the councils refusing this handout from the Government are actually being responsible and helping the Government not get further into debt?!?

If Eric Pickles is arguing that any decision not to accept the Government’s money is immoral then there surely there are no good reasons for a council to turn down this money.

But there are really good reasons not to take the money and following a sort of moral form I’ve put them as follows:

1)    The good (this is a summary of the more substantial piece written here): As the money being offered will only last for one year it will leave council’s in a really deep hole next year. In effect, instead of needing a 7-8% cut in services they will instead need to make 9.5%-10.5% to make up for the extra 2.5% of money they will no longer have. In contrast, if you put up council tax then the money is available next year again. In effect, Eric Pickles is asking councils to take money this year and pay the consequences next year. It’s not unreasonable for council’s not to agree to that sort of trade off. Indeed, one could argue it’s the most rational option.

2)    The bad: Some councils are turning down the 2.5% because they want to increase their tax by 3.5% and thus bring more money in. On its own this is not really a good reason but taken with the good reason above is not unreasonable.

3)    The ugly: A few councils simply don’t like being told what to do by central government and are raising council tax simply to put two fingers up to Eric Pickles. Not exactly immoral (indeed, one could argue they are the true localists, something which has almost been a moral crusade for the coalition) but certainly not a good reason to do something.

Local councils might not be acting in a way that meets with Mr Pickles approval but there are plenty of good, and not so good, reasons why they are acting this way. To describe them as immoral is just another example of Mr Pickles using rhetoric and bombast against local government when a bit of understanding would have been appreciated.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Our weekly top reads

Another week gone, and another week closer to Winterval 2012.  As ever, today we share some of the blogs which we have enjoyed over the past week.  Some of them may even interest you too…

Is teamwork obsolete?  Well, perhaps not, but this thought provoking piece from the New York Times poses this question as it explores how isolation and privacy may actually lead to creativity and innovation.

SOME teamwork is fine and offers a fun, stimulating, useful way to exchange ideas, manage information and build trust.

But it’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle; it’s another to be corralled into endless meetings or conference calls conducted in offices that afford no respite from the noise and gaze of co-workers. Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.

We’ve had a few things to say in the past on the merits or otherwise of council newspapers, but love them or hate them perhaps they aren’t as dead in the water as we though.  The excellent Comms2point0 blog (which you really should subscribe to by the way) went to the effort of pointing a few stats out for us.

44% of households still buy a daily newspaper.

Of the 2.940 articles from releases and enquiries mentioning Halton Borough Council in the past year 57% appeared in local papers and more if you count their websites.

Out of more than 833 enquires more than 72% came from the local press – and the resulting stories appeared in the papers or their websites.

Look through the news threads on Twitter – see how many link to stories originating from newspapers. I have yet to have one media enquiry from a blogger – although I would welcome them.

A quick post but a few headlines which may help you think through some other reasons why focussing on the structure chart when strategies stagnate may not be the smartest or only thing to do.

When a company struggles to execute on a strategy, all too often the first reaction is to redraw the organization chart. This is costly and often ineffective. Rather than tinker with structure and incentives, organizations should look at the inner workings of the company and pull more effective levers, such as decision rights, information flow, and motivators. We are so emphatic with our clients that “it’s not just about structure” that during a recent discussion with one CEO he asked, “You do address structure too, right?” We do, of course, but we believe it is only one component of what enables an organization to execute.

Who are your publics?  No, not a typo; in this post from @kellyQHicks she highlights some of the different types of public out there, along with why we should be looking to engge or address all of them.

In another well-worth-a-read blog post , Grunig points out that social media gives publics the freedom to identify themselves, rather than wait to be defined by an organisation’s self-interest. He suggests that organisations should engage all publics to the extent of available resources. If this ideal situation is not possible, publics should be prioritised “according to the impact the organisation has on them or the impact they have on the organisation  … [which] requires judgement both about social responsibility and about the strategic interests of the organisation.”

Via the Guardian, there’s good news and bad news about the state of play for the financial health of local government .

Perhaps surprisingly, given the sector’s initial reaction to the spending review and the scale of funding reductions required, local authorities have coped well so far. But though the message is positive, the challenges facing the sector remain significant and very real.

There has been some effective leadership from senior management and elected members who have not shied away from making some very difficult decisions. Yet the task ahead is to continue to make difficult financial decisions – the impact of which will not be easy for service users, staff and residents – while making further savings over the next three years.

Unfortunately it’s something we’ve been saying for a while – it’s going to get worse before it get’s less worse.  Chins up, all.

And a second from the good old Guardian, where this time the issue of the police spending £35,000 on the speaking clock is put into a little context.

Some examples: assuming everyone in the Met drinks two cups of tea per shift, the force’s annual bill on teabags alone will top £65,000. Allowing a modest four toilet rolls per year per officer gives a yearly bill of £34,000+. I’d keep going, but we may need to save some of these for a boost on a slow news day.

If you detected a (substantial) dollop of sarcasm above, congratulations. There’s no doubt spending £35,000 on calls to the speaking clock, in an age where every mobile phone and PC constantly displays the time, seems ridiculous. But the number perhaps warrants closer examination.

The key issue, as hinted at in the (somewhat facetious) examples above, is that the Metropolitan Police is a huge organisation: it has more than 35,000 officers and PSCOs, plus more than 13,000 civilian staff. Even trivial amounts of spending per officer quickly adds up.

And it would be remiss of us to not mention #UKGC12, or UK Gov Camp for those who aren’t in the know.  An unconference bringing together some of the best and brightest minds looking at whatever interests them such as digital engagement, innovation and even plain old policy development.  Of course, with at least one member of the WLLG crew also in attendance it’s not only the brightest but also mere mortals taking part…

Have a good weekend!

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

But where are the Knights?

‘Do you ever get the feeling that you’re just a pawn on a big chess board?’

So asked Sarah Norman during a discussion of public sector job losses and the attempts by the Government to move those jobs to the private sector; either by moving the service into the private sector or by losing public sector jobs and replacing them with a growing private sector.

However, the wider question Sarah asked is a profound one.

I think we expect our leaders to be something akin to chess players, making their small moves but always doing so with an overall plan and a view of exactly what is happening across the whole chess board.

So as we like to do with profound questions here is the We Love Local Government guide to how our leaders, and others in local government, play chess:

Eric Pickles: Mr Pickles is a chess player with just one strategy. He’s learnt it really well and is consistent and well drilled in its delivery. However, if people try to deviate from the ‘cuts’ strategy it can flummox him and make him make mistakes. However, those that underestimate him and dive straight him, not seeing the wider strategy, often end up with their king lying face down.

The local councillor: Adept at playing the role of the knight, the local councillor can jump in multiple directions, leap over problems and others with a single leap and change direction when things get tricky. However, their reach and scope are limited.

David Cameron: A man who has been known to struggle with the details I reckon David Cameron is one of those guys who has a clear vision of where he’d like the whole board to be but then leaves the game up to someone else to play; only stepping in when the player tries to put his own piece into checkmate.

The local government chief executive: A man just playing the king. He can only really see one square to either side of him but knows it is imperative that he survives so does so by making the most of these meagre powers and trying to get into the best possible position to survive.

Ed Miliband: A chess player constantly on the attack but struggling to break through the defences of the opposition. Struggling to make an impact but constantly playing short term attacks in the hope one of them will stick.

The third sector: In a time of cuts there is a greater incentive to be one of the ‘big’ organisations able to get money from the Government’s new payment by results or to compete against the big services firms and ‘bid’ to run council services. Therefore, the third sector is like a collection of people only able to play their own pawn; each trying their best to make it to other end of the board so that they can become a queen.

The WLLG blog: We’re the commentary team stuck behind the pillar. We’ve got a really good view of a little part of the board but we are far away from the board, can’t influence the play and can’t always tell what else is influencing our few squares of the board.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Same Words: Different Order?

We love guest posts and today’s is a classic environmental study; in that it despairs of the amount of paper wasted in not particularly ‘original’ research, studies and reports. The argument is quite strident and encourages debate so please do chime in. If you would like to submit a post for the blog please drop us a line at welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com but not until you’ve enjoyed, and commented on (?!?) today’s post.

After a long day of long tedious meetings, answering phone calls, replying to emails, I try to take some time to catch up with the going’s on in the sector. Who’s tweeting, what report is out, who asked the most ridiculous question in PMs Question time?

Today I was catching up with a thorough read on the Positive for Youth report launched in December 2011. Whenever I open up a document that Adobe tells me is over 50 pages, it usually serves a quick scan, pick up on the important points and move on. However, being in the youth sector, I thought it important that this particular report should get a little bit more of my attention; particularly if the government isn’t going to change for a while…

The more I read this report, the more I kept saying to myself – surely someone has just copied and pasted this from previous papers, reports, academic studies, green and white papers. This isn’t anything new and actually, most of this is just recycled common sense.

I engender no disrespect to what is a well written, well researched and well implemented report. Doubtless the authors have just done what they were asked to do.

What I do take issue with is that this is a typical example of tax payers money being spent on reports that have already been done. The cost of commissioning an academic study can be tens of thousands of pounds and yet we don’t seem to be making the most of this money.

Take into account the riots last summer. Not only was there damage to shops, streets and faith in community safety, but there was also a huge commission and report into why this happened.

You only have to look at the youtube video filmed by young people the year before to understand why they happened. A little bit more interactive than Adobe reader!

I was reminded of this phenomenon again as when reading my council’s latest document on strategic priorities that had been consulted on, deciphered and reported up. Hold on a second thought I, this is exactly the same as last year with just a few words changed.

What crosses my mind when I see these reports is that the nature of these reports is changing. Ideas are no longer seen as novel, especially for those of us constantly looking for ideas on the www. After all, if you can exchange ideas, share best practice and look at international projects on twitter the need for regular reports looking at these ideas three years later is less valuable than it used to be. We still need the ideas but the reports are struggling to keep up with the society and provide anything new and novel.

So why do we commission these expensive reports if they don’t tell us anything new?

Part of me could understand this if the purpose was to raise the profile of a particular issue. In the case of Positive for Youth, it is imperative that the Conservatives put their take on how young people are being supported in the UK .

But really, do we write them so that we don’t have to write “ditto” underneath previous administrations findings?

Baffled.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at: welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Facilitation; not as easy as it looks

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing an expert in action.  During a rather large meeting involving 20 or 30 representatives from as many local authorities, our facilitator showed that the skill of facilitation is alive and kicking, as well as demonstrating just how important and often undervalued it is.

In my experience, a good facilitator can be very much like engine oil – many don’t think it’s a vital component and believe they can get by without it, but all that happens is things grind through and eventually grind to a halt.  Having had the pleasure to see more than my fair share of expert facilitators over the course of my career, I thought it may be worth sharing some of the things which I think make a real difference during any meeting, workshop or event.

1.  Trust yourself

To begin with, you will need to know and trust in your own skills.  Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses will pay dividends when you begin to formulate strategies to get the group from a to b, and will remind you in a tough spot that you are able to cope and keep things positive.

You will also find that your self confidence – being careful to not be mistaken for arrogance – will allow the participants to feel in safe hands and in the knowledge that with your help they will achieve all their goals.

2.  Trust the group

Too many facilitators feel that it is their responsibility to achieve results.  It isn’t.  A facilitators role is to enable the group to achieve results themselves; if you want to take on such a responsibility yourself take off your facilitation hat and put on your chair’s hat.

In the average group are enough grey cells to address almost any challenge and discuss solutions or ideas.  Due to the underlying nature of humans often people defer to perceived authority; if you abuse your position and authority within the group you will certainly stifle creativity and discussion to the detriment of the session.

3.  Trust and know the process

Whether you are using a standard round table discussion, Pin Point, Lego Serious Play, Talking Walls, World Cafes, icebreakers, active roleplay, goldfish roleplay, stop start roleplay or something more creative, you need to know what you are doing.  A well planned process will allow a facilitator to almost ignore it and spend their time concentrating on the most important aspect of any session: the participants.

As with showing confidence in yourself, if you clearly explain the process and show your confidence in it you will take the group with you and enable them to relax and explore the issue in the ways you need them to.  If you spend your time checking your notes, worrying about timings and stumbling through the session then your group will not follow the process fully and will end up in a very different place than intended.

4.  Address problem personalities

When I’ve trained facilitators, this is usually the one part of the session that raises more questions than any other – how to deal with problem personalities.  Most people consider the hardcore personality – those who are willing to scream and shout to get their own way – and these are certainly out there.  However, just as destructive are the passive-aggressive comment snipers, the know-it-all walking stat machines and the non-players who ignore all efforts to involve them.

Just as difficult are those who simply support the opinions of the loudest speakers, although my personal challenge comes when dealing with ‘babies’ – those who manage to turn any discussion into an opportunity to talk about themselves, in particular things that went wrong in their lives.  The personal need to allow people to have their say fights with the need to keep the discussion moving and involve all participants, all while the baby is continuing to suck energy and attention towards themselves.  All of these need to be dealt with appropriately, quickly and consistently, lest the group suffer.

5.  Bring a watch

Very simple, but something it’s easy to forget.  Start on time, make sure each section runs to time and finish on time.  there’s always the temptation to overrun if discussion proves interesting; unless you know what you are doing and have set up the session to allow for free-roaming discussion, this could mean you don’t leave long enough to cover anything, so be wary.

6.  Set your room up

Obviously this depends on the specific technique you have planned, but make sure you can get into the room in advance to make sure it’s set the way you need it.  Make sure there are enough chairs (though not too many), that no-one has their backs to you and that you won’t have the sun at your back.

If participants arrive in your session and find you hastily setting out flipchart or moving tables it simply leads them to believe that you are not prepared physically, therefore probably are just as unprepared mentally.

7.  Use humour – but sparingly

Not everyone is blessed with the comedic skills of Tim Minchin, but most of us can in our own ways make others smile.  If you are able to use humour to do this then do so – there is little that will engender trust and a bond between two people more than a shared smile.

It needn’t be an obvious joke of course – a simple short story about something amusing that happened on the way to the session would be enough, or a self deprecating reference perhaps.  Should you be able to spark that smile (and not everyone will bite of course), you will find that the ice will remain broken and the rest of the session will be a lot easier.

8.  Summarise

Whoever ‘they’ are, ‘they’ say that a great presenter tells people what they are going to tell them, then they tell them, then they tell them what they told them.  Well, a good facilitator does the same.  Tell your group what you are going to cover, cover it and then go over what was discussed.  This shows the group that you actually were listening and paying attention, and that all of their effort has not been in vain.

This needn’t wait until the end of course; be sure to summarise points as they are made to be sure that both you and the rest of the group understand them.  Don’t be scared of getting their points wrong when you summarise them in this way, as even if you have got it wrong it allows them the opportunity to correct you and clarify their message.  Just make sure that by the end you actually do understand them, and that they know it.

9.  Watch for leading language

Both with the things you are asking and the way participants are phrasing their statements, be aware of people’s natural propensity to encourage others to side with them.  Often this is subtle and unintended, and is done with the honest intention of creating consensus and finding common ground.  However, dangerously it can also lead to agreement where two parties actually do not agree, stifling the usefulness of the data.

Make sure that all of your own questions are neutral in language and allow the participant to answer in a range of ways.  You need to allow them to take a stand should they want to rather than simply agreeing with you – after all, sitting in a room full of people who do nothing but agree with you and each other isn’t likely to get you any place worth visiting.

(A quick point worth noting – be aware of hierarchies in the room; sometimes you’ll find that people wait to hear what the boss has to say before they share their own opinions for fear of disagreeing.  Nip this in the bud.)

10.  Do something with it all!

This is more tricky to do for one-off sessions, but you need to do something with all that comes out of a session.  It’s not enough simply to write it up, read it and then file it; any facilitated session is aiming to achieve something after all.  If you don’t move something forward then you will suffer the next time you attempt to run a session with any of the participants, or indeed anyone they have spoken with.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at:welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com

Keeping CD sales high

I recently read an article about CD sales in 2011 which, whilst obviously praising Adele for her near domination of the music market, shared the fascinating insight that roughly three quarters of all music sales in 2011 (82.2 million to 26.6 million) were made on CDs and not from online music stores.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who works in the world of internet television. Despite me arguing that I wanted some form of pay per view TV (mainly because I don’t have Sky but would like to buy the odd football match to watch) he pointed out that the great majority of the population can’t think of anything worse and much prefer the subscription model.

Indeed, I believe this was the motivation for Lovefilm to shift across to that model for their online service.

Why do I mention this? Well, in both cases the assumptions I made, as a fairly IT literate individual was that a) people would share my belief that digital is better and that b) people’s spending habits would reflect this.

In fact I was wrong.

Normal subscription TV dominates the ‘added value’ pay per view TV market and despite my mis-perceptions the purchase of good old fashioned CDs still dominates the music market, at least for now.

So what can this tell us about the Local Government world in which we work?

Firstly, just because mobile apps are really funky and twitter is growing and lots of people like to pay bills using the internet this does not mean that everyone wants to do things that way. A GP was on the radio a few weeks ago commenting that three quarters of the visits he received at his surgery were from about 10% of his client list. I would not be surprised if this was similar for a local authority and I would not be surprised if both the GP and the council found that the people most likely to contact them (the 10%) were not the people with the i-phones and internet savvy habits.

Secondly, we need to really understand our customers (or whatever we choose to call them) and what they actually want. Sometimes we are tempted to follow the logic of the Field of Dreams and believe that if we build it the people will come. Maybe they will but if we take the time to work out what they want and then build that surely we stand a much better chance. Often, the answers we will receive will not be the ones we want to hear.

I realise that writing something like this on this blog will make me seem a little luddite-ish. My co-writer would doubtless have me down as one of the guys who needs to innovate in 2012. However, it does cut both ways; much as an understanding of the people we work for would have me making sure CDs are still available for 75% of the people I’d also be making damn sure I was providing the right service for the other 25%.

My point is that life is complex and getting blinded by new technology simply because it is the future can lead us to forget the present and the people we are meant to be working for.

Welovelocalgovernment is a blog written by UK local government officers. If you have a piece you’d like to submit or any comments you’d like to make please drop us a line at: welovelocalgovernment@gmail.com