Agenda item

The Chairman invited Cllr Judi Billing, Lead Member, and Helen Jenkins, Head of Leadership, to introduce the update.

Judi explained that it was not yet possible to provide a full detailed breakdown of participants on leadership courses by protected characteristics, but officers were working on this. However, the LGA should be proud of the fact that women and BAME councillors had always been over-represented at these events.

In relation to the Be a Councillor events and attracting a more diverse range of candidates, Judi said that the LGA was doing its best, but the Government needed to urgently provide councils with more flexibility over how to hold all their formal meetings and also to address issues around parental leave and pensions, all of which could put candidates off putting themselves forward.

Helen added that the first fully in-person leadership event had been held last week but it would be a challenge to balance the demand for in-person, virtual and hybrid meetings going forward.

Helen flagged up the record number of NGDP graduates who had joined the scheme so far this year (190), already exceeding the KPI, and offered congratulations to Grace Collins, who had been awarded an MBE for her work over 21 years in supporting various leadership programmes. Members of the Board echoed these sentiments.

Members comments and questions

·       Political parties needed to have honest conversations about how they select candidates for council elections. Members cited the ‘Ask Her to Stand’ campaign as an example of best practice and felt that this would be a positive way to attract more candidates from under-represented groups. Helen said that the LGA was actively involved in campaigns such as Ask Her and Operation Black Vote.

·       Were any figures available on the correlation between the performance of a local authority and the extent of their engagement with the LGA on leadership development? Helen said that this could be provided.

·       Whilst the new e-learning platform for training was welcomed, it was considered important not to lose all the benefits of face-to-face training and interaction.

·       The virtual new councillor events were praised in relation to increasing participation and how interactive they were.

Decision:

Improvement & Innovation Board:

·       Noted the update and endorsed the proposed future work programme.

·       Endorsed the plans to enhance the ‘Be a Councillor’ campaign including bringing a full report to the next Board meeting on 7 October 2021 for agreement.

Actions:

·       Provide breakdown of local authority performance vs engagement with the LGA. Helen Jenkins.