Ben is a highly regarded local government executive director, management consultant, non-exec director and poacher/gamekeeper with almost 40 years public services experience.

Throughout Ben’s substantive and consulting career he has a successful track record of managing, leading, and transforming services and commercial ventures across People, Place and Corporate Services, often in highly political and unionised environments. A bright, creative thinker, consultative and facilitative by nature, Ben is a solutions driven and outcome focussed completer-finisher.

Ben’s commercial and technical expertise and acumen is underpinned by a mixed tool kit approach to change coupled with strong governance which Ben ultilises to horizon scan and mitigate risk. Ben’s innate ability to articulate viable, easy to understand solutions and outcomes to stakeholders ensures that officers, organisations, and members are brought on the transformation journey, business benefits are realised, and more robust, financially viable and sustainable public services are achieved, delivering better outcomes for all.

Today we discussed, how that in some situations, a problem facing councils is that they have trading companies but realise they’re not as well equipped to manage them as they want to, or should be.

Segments:

1. How did this come about?
2. What are typical problems?
3. What are the things many councils didn’t know they needed to prepare for?
4. What steps can councils take to overcome these challenges?

I sat down with Helen McGrath, Executive DIrector of Policy and Governance at the LLG (Lawyers in Local Government). We discussed the need for robustness with councils code of conduct, particularly on the use of council address for political purposes.

We then explored how this can be extended by reference to cllr addresses and the increase in abuse against them.

Recruitment and retention are two of the largest challenges facing the local authority space. With so much spend on interim staff, councils utilise MSP (managed service providers) to deliver a cost effective and trackable recruitment service. For any council with an MSP, re tendering or considering using an MSP, finding a cost effective solution, that meets your financial, social and organisational requirement is extremely challenging.

Today we have to experts from Page Group, Dale Hampshire - Senior Business Development Director and Alan Griffin - Account Director to talk through Page’s offering in the local government space, providing a fresh solution to the market. They explored how to get the most from your recruitment managed service provider.

In our second part with the eminent Colin Copus, we discussed the constitutional standing and status of local government. We explored why we need to emphasise the ‘government’ in local government more – the sorts of freedoms, powers and autonomy that is commonplace to local government across the globe, but lacking here and why.

Great to sit down with Lauren Sadler, who is a health and social care transformation consultant, exploring how we can achieve better integration between local authorities and the NHS. We explored the challenges and the solutions in a compact, but highly productive conversation.

If you start with the why, instead of the governance, the momentum can help overcome the considerable challenges to integration.

Today Alison and I explored how by utilising the levers of flexible working and placemaking we can tackle inequality within society.

Sarah Hall is the Deputy Director of Law and Governance at West Northamptonshire Council. She shared her experience of recruiting an entire new legal team from essentially a standing start when the new unitary was formed. She gave her advice to monitoring officers and legal leaders about how she has via direct recruitment achieved this.

Sarah's proactive and entrepreneurial approach is exactly what the local government sector needs to do more of. Instead of trying to achieve a different outcome with the same approach.

Also, big shout out to West Northamptonshire for having such a high proportion of female representation in their leadership, shout out to Julia Rickards, Nicki Agalamanyi and Katherine Hall. It is fantastic to see and on international women's day is a powerful reminder of how gender equality and inclusivity are key ingredients to successfully building effective councils.

For me LocalGov Drupal is the epitome of the potential of local government. Instead of each council reinventing the wheel, via collaboration they are saving councils time, money and the isolation of tackling IT challenges alone. What WillCallaghan, Co Founder and Product & Project Lead and his team have created is an inspiration. The profit that come from the group go back into the platform.

LocalGov Drupal is the publishing platform created by councils, for councils. It has 44 member local authorities across the UK and Northern Ireland.

Today we explored:

How did LocalGov Drupal get started?

What challenges are council digital teams facing? How does LGD help?

What other initiatives are doing this?

- open referral

- open digital planning

- open source revs & bens

- Cumbria’s track & trace system

What does it feel like working on LGD or for an LGD council?

Is there any scope to expand this collaborative approach?

What’s stopping more councils doing collaborative work?

For more information reach out to Will Callaghan [email protected] or look at the website https://localgovdrupal.org/about-us/our-story

The future of the expansion of green transport fundamentally relies on the ability of local and central government to embrace electric vehicle infrastructure.

Today I sat down with Adrian Fielden-Gray COO - Be.EV; Co-Founder.

Be.Ev is responsible for the growth and ongoing operations of the 'Be.EV' network, currently the largest network of public EV chargers in Greater Manchester and expanding across the North of England. Cover the full life cycle from design though to installation, ongoing operations and asset management. Additional focus on key stakeholder management, customer journey, membership engagement, data insights and UX.

We discussed the steps local authorities must take place to grow electric vehicle infrastructure in a economically sustainable and logistically relevant manner. The solution is a targets-based system allowing local government and the private sector to put in a reliable, future-proof, extensive network.

Great to hear about the great work that Be.EV are doing with Trafford Council and Stockport Council.

It was great to sit down with Majeed Neky, Assistant Director - Economy at West London Alliance to discuss what local government can do to encourage devolution from central government.

Majeed has worked at a senior level in both central and local government and thus provides a really interesting vantage point, to discuss how local and central government can best work together.

We discussed:

• Local and central government: the view from both sides
  • Decentralisation and accountability – why is central government reluctant to let go of power; what can be done about this; what does local government need to be able to take on new responsibilities
  • Experience of working on devolution negotiations from both sides
  • Cultural barriers and similarities
• The role of London in the devolution and cities policy discussion