APSE gets the blues!

APSE launched its Governance, Neighbourhoods and Service Delivery research today at the Conservative Councillors Association conference in Warwickshire.

Cllr Margaret Eaton the CCA chair joined our Assistant Chief Executive Mark Bramah and Steve Griggs of INLOGOV at a packed reception. Good to see people of the quality of Cllr Paul Bettison taking the time to show up and support our event.

Mark also attended the annual dinner in the evening.

NHS for change!

Normally I spend all of my time focused on local government but having spent the last few days in hospital following a football accident I have managed to view the NHS close up.

I have to say that my experience was first class from the accident and emergency staff to the Doctors, Consultants, Porters, Nurses, Cleaning and Catering staff everyone was thoroughly professional and couldn't do enough for me. I have always known that the media hype is very different from users experience, but really those with influence need to stand up and defend what is a excellent public service.

Being confined to bed for a few days I managed to talk to nurses, cleaners and caterers about 'agenda for change' and they told me it had transformed the place. For those not familiar with this it is the NHS version of dealing with equal pay grading. The difference is that Government fully funded the pay differential in the NHS and took the pain out of the situation - if only this could be done for local government then it would mean that I was the only one feeling intense pain at the moment.

Question time!

Chaired the political debate at APSE's annual Scottish Housing conference at Peebles Hydro and its one of the most enjoyable events that I have been involved in for ages.

Alex Neil MSP spoke for the Government and Derek Brownlee MSP responded for the Conservatives, Andy Kerr MSP for Labour and Jim Tolson MSP for the Lib dems. The theme was a general 'how can local government deliver best value in the future' and this allowed us to cover many areas but with an emphasis on housing. We also touched on equal pay, ringfencing, community benefits and skills shortages. I got to play David Dimblbey as we moved on to question time and all of the MSPs did admirably, the delegates were certainly happy and the session was packed out with brilliant feedback.

Although I had a few nervous moments when Alex suggested that we should look at the performance management system that is used in Virginia in America, I could almost sense the phrase study tour being telepathically transmitted to me from members of our Scottish Regional and National Councils.

I also managed to sit in on the housing green paper debate in the afternoon where Alan Ferguson from Chartered Institute of Housing, Jim Hayton, Executive Director of Housing South Lanarkshire and Matt Smith from UNISON made their contributions. Again the quality of debate and information was first class. I was very impressed with Jim's analysis and his assessment of the key role local authorities must play in conjunction with other partners if the public's needs are to be met.

Our apprentice awards dinner took place on the Thursday night and our Policy, Performance and Scrutiny Committee met on the Friday morning. The event was a busy few days but the conference itself was our best Scottish Housing conference in years.

Rewarding public service in Northern Ireland!

Went across to the Northern Ireland Local Government Association conference in Derry to launch a new awards scheme at their annual dinner.

The awards will be delivered in partnership between APSE, NILGA, the Local Government Staff Commission, the Local Government Training Group and hopefully the DoE will also get involved.

The idea is to celebrate best practice and promote a culture of continuous improvement and excellence amongst the local authorities. The President of NILGA, Arnold Hatch and myself did the launch accompanied by a short video clip about what we are trying to achieve.

A good night was had by all, especially as the after dinner entertainment, Tim McGarry, used his slot to poke fun at politics and life in Northern Ireland. I understood about 80% of the jokes although some were obviously based on very local issues. However he didn't miss any of the political parties or main public figures and whilst this made some individuals squirm a bit in their chairs at times, everyone had something to laugh about over the course of his set.

York FM!

It's the APSE FM Seminar in York and I arrive at lunch on the first day to be roped into chairing the Catering bespoke session in the afternoon. Fortunately all four speakers are interesting in their own specific specialisms. Lindsay Graham discusses obesity challenges, Bet Jenkins talks about secondary school uptake, Esmee Russell covers nutrient based standards for older people and Jim O'Brien explores excellence in civic catering.

In terms of the plenary sessions we have areal mixed bunch of speakers and some overrun significantly which then has a knock on effect over the day. We get to the evening and have some fun with the audience before our Kylie Minogue impersonator takes to the stage with her backing dancers. A handful of people decide its not for them but the majority participate and it turns out to be pretty good entertainment. As part of the warm up I do the vote of thanks and integrate 8 Kylie songs into it. We have a competition based on this with the winner getting an overnight for two in the hotel.

York is a great City and most people enjoyed the event and learned something, although some of it could have went more smoothly. With these events its not only the delegates who learn but also us and we will refine our processes to ensure that our next conference is always better than the last.