Weeknote 24th Jan 2025: Strategic Planning Group (SPG) week and UK Innovation
Session 6, Topic 5 of the SPG SDS examinations, Local Growth Plans, old friends and colleagues and Family Forum time.
Session 6, Topic 5 of the SPG SDS examinations, Local Growth Plans, old friends and colleagues and Family Forum time.
It seems like a good time to get back to these and I may mix up with some vlognotes as well depending on time.
It feels (my more so in my glass half full brain) a seminal time in relation to much of the working world I have been part of during my career and my lack of any short term memory necessitates a more rigorous journal keeping for posterity.
A couple of other reasons for getting back to weeknoting too:
- Having taken the step to ‘go it alone’ work wise in the new year I have promised myself to make time weekly for writing to try and create some openness and transparency in things I can share. This also means I can ask questions or probe in areas which is more accessible when you are independent.
- I have lot’s going on and this has been a super helpful way in the past to organise my chaotic thoughts and experiences into some order and reduce the anxiety of poor executive functioning.
So to this week (It’s pretty packed):
One
I’m trying to keep Monday’s free for family and home life. We have a permanent foster child with us at the moment which is full on and also requires the administrative burden of our utterly broken social care system. My wife Diane does the hard yards on this and she is also starting out on her own after 30 years in education, so I really want to ensure I am not just diving into my own work world and focus on family priorities at the beginning of the week.
We are also doing some co working/ body doubling every week to motivate each other and make sure we finish the mundane stuff. This week we went to our friends house to double up with them. One half of this is Eugene who also doubles up as our super creative digital and website developer and advisor. In the the afternoon I snuck a quick chat and coffee in with my old colleague and friend Mike Dearing to geek out on what the brave new world of devolution and local government reform might mean this year for change folk.
Two
Tuesday was a monster with early catch ups with my friend Cain Ullah on what digital transformation fun lies ahead for the year and then that man Sam Stafford whose podcast ’50 Shades of Planning’ is so missed and needed in this new era of planning reform.
The afternoon was super full on heading to the UK Innovation Board (UKIC) for the first time since leaving Greater Cambridge in 2022 in advance of the UKIC Investment prospectus launch at Trowers and Hamlin’s offices. Great to see lot’s of familiar faces there (too many to mention) but key takeaways were some balanced assessment on the state of the economy this coming year from Nick Walkley, super important to begin thinking around the economic transition towards the digital, science and research economies which feel like strong horses to back. I wrote about this here.
The evening launch was great and packed; The evening was run my the indomitable Jackie Sadek and John McGill who it is always awesome to catch up with too. This is a super important and underestimated part of the UK from a profile perspective and Jackie has done wonders in raising it’s profile. Great to meet some new faces too!
Three
Wednesday was a bit calmer after joining on line the launch of the Digital Planning Directory in the morning. This is a really important step for further galvanising the Proptech market and feels like it could be a useful step towards developing a marketplace which could really catalyse the tech sector in helping deliver government ambitions on growth, housebuilding and reform. Shouts to the awesome Bridget, Wei and all those behind the scenes on driving this.
Four
Thursday was dedicated to the Strategic Planning Group so after some plotting with Simon in the morning at the Prior +P Offices, I headed to over to grab a bit of lunch with my friend and Strategic Planner supreme Bev Hindle at the British Library (yes, I can be cultured on occasions!) Interesting to think about the void that will be left by the termination of Pan Regional Partnerships and the opportuity of the new Mayoral Data Office and Council of Regions in filling this and dealing with the still complicated / sticky subject of Duty to Collaborate (previously Duty to Cooperate in old money, just bigger boundaries!).
Topic 4 was SDS examinations and keep an eye on the P + P Linkedin/Website for a round up of the session. Many might think this would be a dry session but this was super dynamic. Many questions over the scope of SDS remain in terms of what they contain but certainly some interesting discussion on the role of Local Growth Plans (LGP’s) in taking some of the heavy lifting on managing private infrastructure providers to improve sequencing development and weighting of national infrastructure projects. This is a win/win IMHO if we start considering SDS’s and LGP’s as integrated investment frameworks (one for the backlog Alex Notay? Big congrats on the Hon MRTPI, well deserved…). Much more detail to come in the following weeks as we get closer to publication drafting.
Five
Friday, a bit of a breather and change of context with our Essex Family Forum Board away day playing Shuttle Board at London Bridge. Nothing gets you back to reality quicker than than talking SEND, inclusion and how to navigate your children through a broken system built for an era gone by.
Anyway good to be back, keep me honest and links to most things I mentioned embedded.