Fantastic to sit down with Andrew Pollard former Chief Exec of two LATCOs - Place Partnership in the Midlands and BD Group in London. We explored what LATCOs are, the pitfalls and challenges councils face setting up and running LATCOs; and, the opportunities that exist utilising LATCOs.

Former Cllr Roy Perry formed the Vision for Hampshire 2050 Commission of Inquiry during his time as Leader of Hampshire County Council and now continues to be Chair and represents the Division of Romsey Rural.Roy was first elected to Hampshire County Council in 2005 and was Leader of the County Council from May 2013 to May 2019. From 2010-2013 he was Executive Lead Member for Childrens Services. Hampshire, with a population of 1.3 million is the third most populous county in Britain with a County Council budget of approximately £2bn p.a.From 1979 - 1995 he was a member of Test Valley Borough Council, Chairman of Planning from 1983 -1985, and Leader between 1985 - 1994.At a national level he is Vice-Chairman of the Children and Young People Board of the Local Government Association.From 1994 to 2004, he was a Member of the European Parliament, initially for Wight and Hampshire South and then as one of the 11 MEPs for South East England. He was Conservative spokesman on the Parliament Culture and Education Committee and Vice President of the Petitions Committee.We talked all things local government episode. Roy was honest and articulate gave some really interesting insights.

Sitting down today with Robin Porter, Chief Executive at Luton Council, his passion and commitment to improving the lives of the people was clear to see. The council is leading the town-wide vision to ensure that by 2040 Luton is to be a healthy, fair and sustainable town, where everyone can thrive and no-one has to live in poverty.This Luton 2040 vision has been created by residents and partners across our town and was first launched in October 2020. The first phase of the vision was focussed on responding to the immediate challenges we faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.Over the past few years businesses, public sector, voluntary and community sector organisations, as well as residents, have worked together to overcome these challenges and lay the foundations for us to achieve this shared long term vision.

Born in Northampton, Jonathan Nunn grew up in a family who ran small businesses in the town, and himself has a career history spanning both corporate environments and smaller businesses, mainly working in the areas of Business Development and in Management Training & Development.In 2016 Jonathan became Leader of Northampton Borough Council, and in 2021 Leader of the new West Northants Unitary Council, which delivers all local authority services to 405,000 residents across the Northampton, South Northants and Daventry area.Jonathan’s passion is for economic development and regeneration across West Northants and the South East Midlands, seeing prosperity and a good environment as fundamental building blocks of a good quality of life.

Thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with Paul Cracknell - Executive Director of Transformation and Strategy at Norfolk County Council.

Sean Harris has been the Chief Executive of One Source, Bolton Council, London Borough of Harrow, London Borough of Lambeth. He now provides strategic leadership support and training to councils across the UK. We explored:

• Leadership
• How to work effectively with the political sphere of local government to achieve positive outcomes for the community.
• Partnerships
• Challenges facing the sector.

Excellent to sit down with Chris Hossack, former Leader of Brentwood Borough Council, 2019 - 2023 and Chairman of the Association of South Essex Local Authorities (ASELA). He also sat on the Thames Estuary Growth Board and of Opportunity South Essex, taking a keen interest in regional growth, infrastructure and investment. We discussed why community should be at the heart of local government decision making.

In response to the BCC article on the sunshine millionaire and the £130M that was apparently defrauded from Thurrock Council, I voice my opinions on the obligations that main stream media has to probe into why these situations are arising. Serious change is needed to the funding model in the UK for local authorities. The media needs to support this rather than only reporting only drama and sensationalised news stories.

So much of what leadership revolves around is integrity and a strong moral compass to allow your team to buy into your vision and you as a leader. Rob Moran former Chief Executive of Elmbridge Borough Council, is a great example of leadership and in our conversation we explored the challenges facing local government, the lessons he took from his years as a local government leader and the renaissance local government is experiencing at the present time.

Fantastic episode today speaking with Stephen Young about transformation, levelling up, funding pressures, inward investment and his personal career journey. What a leader! Halton is in safe hands.