On Tuesday I attended the meeting of the Council’s “Elected Member Development Group”, this is the group of councillors and council offers who meet to look at how we make sure that our councillors have the right training and support to carry out their work.

There were a few items that were of note:

Councillor Training and Development Plans 

We agreed to develop a system whereby each councillor would look at their own training and development needs, and develop this into a personal development plan. All very sensible, in fact so sensible that the Liberal Democrat group have been doing it for years! At least now everyone’s going to benefit from the system.

 Council Candidates Guide

We looked at a draft guide for people who are interested in standing for the Council. I just made a couple of points - one that its importance to recognise the role that political parties play in people standing for council and how that could be improved, and secondly that we should be promoting the many other ways that people can get involved in their communities - as school governors, area partnerrship boards, youth forums, and in the many voluntary groups and organisations that exist in the Borough.

Future Training Plans

We agreed that the next all-councillor training session in March would be on Interview Panels - councillors regularly have to participate in interview panels for senior appointments, and its obviously important that we know what we are doing! Plans for next year include training on Corporate Parenting, and on planing procedures.

Tim