Its the last day the office is open prior to the Christmas break and I am looking forward to the holidays, as for once I am going to stay at home and do nothing.
Spent a couple of days in Northern Ireland, day one is a joint APSE and DoE conference on customer service and I present our views on the matter, along with the Minister Arlene Foster. Arlene spends a bit of time praising APSE in her contribution and this is very welcome, the civil servants are also very friendly and hopefully we can do more joint working in the future. The 80 delegates appear satisfied with the event and hopefully we have all shared some learning.
Have a joint away day at the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) at Birmingham University with the UNISON local government headquarters staff.
On my way back from Southampton yesterday I stopped in London to visit DCLG to discuss with them the up and coming reorganisation of English local government and what the practical implications would be.
Chaired two of the key sessions at the low carbon South East conference in Southampton today. The event at Southampton University brought together local government, the wider public sector, academia and the private sector to discuss how we can collectively tackle the issue of climate change and make an economic advantage from innovation and entrepreneurship in this area. The South East is the strongest performing area of the U.K.s economy but that also brings with it the problem of being the highest carbon creator.