back from ppma

here i am back in London and ready to go to the next event, a reception to mark the retirement of Bill Kilgallon, Chief Executive of SCIE. an awesome man, who i first interviewed several years ago.

ppma was quiet this year, another event where there seemed to be more consultants than poss clients, will have to think carefully about these events in the future

work life balance

off to the ppma conference tomorrow, another night away, work life balance is hard and harder with small children. working at home does not work either, they want to be with daddy all day. and i want to be with them.

so whats the answer? different job, no i dont think so but what i do think works is the right state of mind, accepting where you are and driving flexibility in your working day. doing different hours, working as it fits when you can to compensate for the times it does not.

this occupies my mind a lot; so now i have had one response on my blog i am getting an appetite for it?

how can we really devlop a practical approach to work life balance?

Dining with a difference

what an interesting event, the evening started off with a sketch all about disability and how things had changed over the past 20 years, then after a speech from the minister, off for dinner.

all done at the Oval with a cricket theme, teams scoring runs by discussing and answering questions

a fun light hearted evening raising and discussing the really important issue of how employers tap the rich pool of talent of disabled people in this country

Dining with a difference

Off to a really interesting event this evening as a guest of the Employers Forum for Disability. I have no idea what to expect at all and that’s both exciting and scary at the same time.

Here are the details: http://livegroup.co.uk/aneveningwithadifference

Come back tomorrow and I’ll let you know what it was like.

Wanted: leadership talent at all levels

I found it very interesting that two crucial reports – the Budget and Lyons’ final report – came out simultaneously yesterday AND close to deadline time for both the MJ and the LGC…

Regardless, Sir Michael Lyon’s final report Place-shaping: A shared ambition for the future of local government, holds a lot of promise for the local government sector. Yes, there’s a lot to do with funding and council tax, but I think the point that isn’t grabbing the headlines – leadership and governance – is as important, if not more.

Talented leaders – within political parties, and at officer level – are needed. They are needed to guide communities to future prosperity. They are needed to provide accountable, transparent management of their area. They are needed to clearly define the roles of each tier of power (central government, local government and at community level) – and then steer each towards success.

It certainly makes Rockpools’ job quite clear.

The Lyons’ report is a blueprint for how a successful local authority should operate. Now, let’s see its recommendations implemented.

LGC Awards night

So, the week started with the LGC awards. We were guests of Arvato Services who have a PPP deal with East Riding Council. It was a good evening – great to see loads of friends and make some new ones.

Rory Bremner was good on the whole, some dodgy jokes about the war I thought, but he kept it going. Liked the new format too: a lot less time on the awards, which got a bit over the top last year. No recruiters sponsoring this year and only saw people from one competitor, a bit odd!

East Riding won two awards, one for the deal with Arvato, so lots of champagne which was nice.

Everyone started dancing then. It’s amazing that everyone seems to dance – so useless for boring networkers like me! Anyway, then off to the Red Bar at midnight. Now I am not sure why, but hardly any Cx’s there, nor many of my friends – maybe we are all getting sensible on a Monday night. Oh well, all over until next year, but a good night!

Fat cats?

I was concerned about the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s Rich List released last week.

The truth is that local government chiefs manage complex briefs with multimillion pound budgets and have huge responsibilities for managing services which benefit the communities in which they operate. A large local authority will also employ around 10000 people. Compare it with the private sector and you’ve got a very good deal.

Also, they said there were 578 hundred people paid over £100k and they surveyed only 230 out of the over 500 authorities throughout Great Britain, well that’s only 2 people per council!

The bottom line is this: if the public sector wants to attract the best of the best, then they are going to have to pay the going rate. They have to make sure that they’re paying the right people the right money to do the right job. There are other ways of reducing costs which are hard but reducing the quality of leadership is not going to deliver better services for less cost!