Agenda item

The Chairman invited Cllr Judi Billing MBE (deputy chair) and Helen Jenkins, Head of Leadership, to introduce the report.

Judi said that strong and effective leadership would be vital in enabling councils to support their communities through the COVID-19 recovery phase. She said that officers had been refocusing the LGA’s leadership offer so that senior councillors and officers had access to learning resources and the ability to share their experiences with their peers. She added that e-learning resources were going to become increasingly important in delivering these programmes in the future.

Helen said that it was important for councillors to be able to tap into the positive community spirit that had been generated as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and to take this forward through the recovery phase. She highlighted the National Graduate Development Programme and the fact that officers had managed to turn the assessment process into a fully digital one in very short time.

Following the introduction, members raised the following points:

·       It was stated that councillors were not immune from the issues surrounding COVID-19, such as increased domestic abuse, and that this should be recognised. Helen said that work on the code of conduct and intimidation of councillors was ongoing and she would feed these comments into it.

·       Despite the obvious benefits during the lockdown, a word of caution was sounded about carrying out all meetings and training digitally in the future. It was suggested that innovation and insight could often be better gained from informal in-person meetings.

The Chairman thanked Helen and her team for working so hard to adjust the leadership offer to the new conditions in such a short period of time.

Decision

Members of the Improvement and Innovation Board noted the report.