Weeknotes S1, Eps 9 Pre Election and Open Working

In my new journey to trying to be more open in my work in #localgov, the pre election period has suddenly thrown an unanticipated spanner in the works. So for the coming weeks those of us in government settings abide by pre-election guidelines, (open to a certain amount of interpretation) which in lay terms mean we cant really talk about stuff or promote stuff, or make decisions on stuff which may be seen to be politically prejudiced.

I have been getting used to being more open, it is cathartic and helps me reflect on work in a constructive way — also its always good to share with those also working in the sector and has really facilitated some fantastic collaboration and the development of new productive relationships.

So solidarity to those of you in both the civil service and in local government will be feeling constrained in the next few weeks for the same reason — I hear you Paul Downey… cue outpouring of emotions and venting post December the 12th…!!! (I feel like its a little bit like Stoptober or dry January)

One…

So here goes…. prior to entering the pre election period, the week‘s been really enjoyable, culminating the successful approval from both councils committees (subject to minor amendments) to go out to our proposed Issues and Options consultation for the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan in January. This was a great achievement for all involved as its been a real labour of love getting to this stage, especially bringing forward the early stages of a truly ‘digital first’ plan (not an online pdf!!!), and really turning the proposed communications and participation strategy for the plan on its head in how we approach the 6 week consultation in January (lots of us gong to people, pop ups and 90% of our efforts going to engaging the 10% most difficult to reach).

A fantastic effort from all and proud of everybody in my team who helped get us there especially Jon, Caroline, Phil, Stuart, Hana, Gareth and Marie…

Two

That was my Wednesday and Thursday night, so reverse back to the beginning of the week;. We are still finding our way with the implementation of the shared planning service and often we need some of the less positive outcomes and issues to help us iterate and turn these into good and necessary things that will help us progress. Governance is a key element of this and not without its own challenges. We have made a few mistakes with this (IMO) recently and need to do try and push decision making right down to team level much more effectively whilst also ensuring we others can be confident that there is sufficient strategic accountability in place — this is not always easy but like with any good way of working we need to be reflexive and ensure we are self ware in terms of what works, what doesn't and what new stuff we need to try.

Cate McLaurin at LB Hackney has done some really interesting stuff on governance, to paraphrase a statement I heard her say earlier this year ‘you get the governance you deserve.’ We had a few struggles this week with a programme board and in previous times it just might have been ignored. However we are getting to a different place now and I was really pleased how we reflected as a team after and made some adjustments to process and looked a little at roles and responsibilities which we felt were making the situation unclear to try and progress a different approach…

It does reflect on how as organisations we are simply not structured in an effective way to coordinate and drive complex and unwieldy workstreams which require a much more agile and iterative approach and also require spontaneity in order to reflect the ever moving landscape we are trying to impact..

Three

In other news; those of you working in a slightly more progressive environment from a technological perspective are used to having much more agile ways of being able to communicate. However some of us are still stuck in a broadly analogue world whilst we catch up to the efficacies of slack and teams, still navigating a landscape of file hoarding on multiple local drives and 1000 items + in email inboxes. Our recent migration to MS 365 and the impact this has brought was fantastic — I know there are mixed opinions on 365 but for those who aren’t fortunate to have the options on choice in this area I was really hyped to see the difference that having working in a cloud-based environment has already made.

Use of apps like Teams or Slack are often taken for granted, as is the improved outcomes for communicating they can provide and even something as fundamentally basic as having shared drive services cant be underestimated in the world of #localgov. We are really reaping the benefits of the migration to this way of working and it’s making us much more effective and efficient whilst improving our interactions and even a general social uplift.

Pods

This week I’ve been absolutely glued to 13 minutes to the podcast from BBC world service. This is a great telling of the back stories around the Apollo program in the 60’s (arguably one of the most impressive of recent human achievement) I would strongly recommend giving this a listen (even those under the age of 25) and to my digital colleagues; the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was arguably the start of the digital era when the first portable computer facilitated the navigation of that whole mission…

Books

I’m also still reading Hilary Cottam ‘Radical Help’ which is absolutely awesome book and a must read for those interested in Government and social change…