LMDN Notes - 200111 (PDF, 226Kb) - London Councils

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Merton • Of 60 members 19 were new with no experience. • Induction started with a fresher’s’ fair. • Lots of training for members following on from PDP’s. • Community training. • 9 th December – general planning programme, which was provided by Trevor Roberts Associates. Running a more detailed session on 1 March for members. • Departments getting involved with there own inductions for members. • Member services will take a low profile in the future. City of London (not in attendance) Have recently circulated training and learning needs questionnaire to all 125 Members and responses are slowly being received. We're hoping to review all returned questionnaires over the coming weeks and thereafter develop a longer term member training programme which can be endorsed by the Member Development Steering Group before the recess. This will enable us to then roll out a clear programme as of September. In respect of other training activities, we're still looking to arrange at least one Chairing Skills training session for Members - approx. 35 members (old and newer) have expressed an interest in this. Possible training providers include RADA, Gateway Training and Midas Training Solutions. If anyone has any feedback on these providers, it would be gratefully received – contact mailto:lorraine.brook@cityoflondon.gov.uk. Ideally, this will take place over the next 6 weeks. 2. POTENTIAL IMPACT OF BUDGET SAVINGS ON MEMBER DEVELOPMENT – Dave Burns, Lambeth All those in attendance at the last meeting of the Member Development network agreed that a small working meet to have a broader debate around member training. The first meeting of the group took place on the 10 th December 2010 to try and flesh out the potential of some joint working. Dave feedback the following: • Commissioning was identified as an area where it would apply to all. • Future relationship with London Councils as they have been hit by the cuts. • How we, as a group, support each other e.g. running sessions, offering spaces on training courses to neighboring boroughs. • Supporting each other through these challenging times. • Providers and the issue of equality. The need to be more forceful in how we deal with providers to drive costs down. • Possibility of establishing mentoring and development clubs – we have the where with all to manage. Good to share these skills within London. • How to capture information and exploit with ADSO site. Key conclusions: • Commissioning – looking at 2011-12 onwards. Geographically not that easy but in terms of commissioning a provider it is worth trying to get a reduction in price. As a group we need to find a way of creating a way to communicate better. • Mentoring and development clubs – need to think about this. Agreed to discuss at the next network meeting on 17 th March, the potential budget implications, as budgets should be known by then. 3. MEMBER DEVELOPMENT DISSERTATION UPDATE – Adam Walther, Lambeth Adam gave a presentation on his member development dissertation. 4
The presentation covered the following: • Member development – an investigation • Member conflict • Professionalization • Time • The four P’s of pressure • How to improve member development • Member development programmes are strongly supported. • Recommendations Adam’s slides are attached. Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation If colleagues would like a copy of Adam’s dissertation or have a chat about his findings please contact him at mailto:awalther@lambeth.gov.uk or mailto:adamwalther@gmail.com 4. EXPERIENCE OF BEING VIRTUAL MAYOR – Cllr Jack Hopkins, Lambeth Unfortunately, Cllr Hopkins was unable to attend this meeting but provided the following: The Virtual Mayor post was something which I was excited about but I think fair to say that I did not use to the full. I wrote a number of pieces initially about general topics which I thought would be of interest to other councillors from across London, and across the political spectrum. My goal was to encourage user generated content but I didn’t even manage this with my own councillors, many of whom read the links to my pieces but did not comment. I would be interested to know how many people did come and visit the site. If I were to go back and do it again I think there has to be some way to send out an update to group whips or perhaps through member support services in each authority. In this way interesting comment pieces could be posted; experiences of individual councillors or authorities on specific topics, etc. As it is, I am uncertain how traffic is generated. In terms of content this does require a level of commitment which I had initially hoped to be able to fulfil. The virtual mayor would benefit from being a councillor already in the habit of writing blogging pieces and therefore perhaps doing a weekly update on the local government world. I think they would probably benefit from having some guidance early on about sifting through the week’s stories by way of an update, being clear from the start. How are Councillors contacted and what updates do they get that make it through the spam filter? There is little time to do council business vs. numerous emails so more thought needs to go into how to catch attention and provide relevant content. Case studies of complex, multi agency casework might be useful which could be requested from all over London. Therefore the following steps are worth considering for future virtual mayors: • Clarity on how traffic gets generated to the forum’s or blogs • Link councillors to ensure content shared in respective authorities • Clarity on what needs to be communicated to • Greater content which can be downloaded from the site on common and relevant challenges 5
Page 1 and 2: London Member Development Network (
Page 3: Kensington & Chelsea • Ran a full
Page 7 and 8: Leadership Academy Climate Change P

LMDN Notes - 200111 (PDF, 226Kb) - London Councils

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