Tim's Council Diary: Learning from Others

7 Jul 2023
Jim Martin and Tim Prater at 2023 LGA Conference

This week was mainly at the LGA (Local Government Association) conference in Bournemouth.

This is a conference attended by Councillors from many authorities across the country (generally but not exclusively "lead" councillors) and also Chief Executives and other officers.

A team of four went from Folkestone and Hythe - Jim & Tim at our first LGA conference, and Connor and Susan, emphatically not.

Despite the hovering spectre of train strikes (actually that week an overtime ban that seemed to have little impact) we let the train take the strain, and the journey was a good chance to catch up. As at least all three Councillors have railcards too, we saved some money there!

The conference itself was a variety of group meetings, training / presentation sessions, speeches (I'm politically obliged to say Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey gave an excellent speech on Thursday, and am happy to, as I think he did) and social events in the evening.

It's a great chance to network and speak to Councillors and officers from loads of other places looking for their examples of things to do, and things not to do. There is a *huge* exhibition of organisations selling opportunity to councils, with, like most exhibitions, those opportunities ranging from "sounds great" to "avoid". The key is working out which is which...

We left Thursday, and made it back to Folkestone in time for a nice quiet night in Finance Scrutiny Sub-Committee. I'm not a member of that, but as Cabinet member for Finance wanted to see what they thought about the Finance outturn papers and Annual Review of 22-23, prior to those papers going to Cabinet the following week.

I listened, appreciated their scrutiny and advice, and (spoiler alert) accepted every one of their suggestions and recommendations and Cabinet the following week. I'm sure that won't be the case every meeting, but it's great to see Scrutiny and Executive working together to improve the ways we work. It's the way it should be, and hopefully will be...

Larry Ngan and Lib Dem Campaigners on The Leas, Folkestone

Sign up
for email updates

You can opt-out at any time
The Liberal Democrats may use the information you provide, including your political opinions, to further our objectives and share it with our elected representatives. Any data we gather will be used in accordance with our privacy policy: libdems.org.uk/privacy. You can exercise your rights and withdraw your consent to future communications by contacting us: data.protection@libdems.org.uk or: DPO, Lib Dems, 1 Vincent Square, SW1P 2PN.

Donate
to fuel our campaigns

Larry Ngan, Daniel and Fry with "Build More Houses" t-shirt on The Leas, Folkestone

This website uses cookies

Like most websites, this site uses cookies. Some are required to make it work, while others are used for statistical or marketing purposes. If you choose not to allow cookies some features may not be available, such as content from other websites. Please read our Cookie Policy for more information.

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the website to function properly.
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website.
Marketing cookies are used by third parties or publishers to display personalized advertisements. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.