The work spot, 09.07.08

Once again, significant time has elapsed since the last entry.  Still, I keep trying.  And I probably should have done this earlier, given that I needed to make an activity report to a meeting earlier this afternoon!

I’m having mixed experiences with the work programme at present.

Some easier ‘quick wins’ (eugh, jargon, but still) are being ticked off.  A hugely popular training course on presenting data, jointly hosted with the East Midlands, is happening next week.  I’ve also set up an open meeting with ONS and SUF, to bring together interested parties looking at local and regional products.  Sadly SUF dropped the ball and I missed a crucial meeting at which I’d have publicised – so not enough publicity has gone out.  I’m not sure what else I can do – or how much of a priority it should be.  The business plan has me maintaining links and looking for development opportunities, but I do feel that I am inadvertently satisfying a SUF KPI for the year, rather than an ARO one.

I’m also putting in some hard yards on administrative and network updates.  As agreed by the Board last week, I’m putting together the first attempt at a staff directory, includin the details needed to link together specialists.  At the moment, I’m dependent on the websites or other information of members – but I’m hopeful that they will take it on and use it.  I’m also going to prompt use of the research database as it has not got up to speed at all.  All these things take time, and are perhaps areas where additional support for me (admin support, perhaps) would be of use.  However, I foolishly rejected that idea, and instead asked for specialist help for the lobbying work.  With glorious hindsight (and a view of the work of the comms consultant) I’m beginning to think I should have had confidence in my lobbying abilities if I had a junior member of staff to take these admin tasks off me.  Note to self – next time admin is suggested, say yes.  As my brief bit of lobbying training taught me, it is pretty much common sense as long as you have the time to sit and think about it.  That’s the key!

I’m following up some of the suggestions made by the comms consultant, in terms of scoping membership and interests of key select committees.  I copied our letter to CLG senior civil servant bod to HMT and BERR; and sent an amended (i.e. edited) version to Ministers.  We had acknowledgement from CLG yesterday and so I’ll be following that up with a call, and maybe a meeting.  As I’m the only FT ARO person I know I need to be the proactive person in pushing this forward, even if it might have an impact of more interest to members.

The responses so far, both direct to me and indirectly to members, is that ROs are valued – I’ve heard from a few sources that CLG and BERR, particularly, recognise them in some way.  Attaching a financial ask to that, in a way that isn’t detrimental if it doesn’t happen, is the challenge – plus ramping up the recognition, and value, with MPs and peers.

I’m keeping a weather eye on a number of consultations or inquiries.  Tomorrow sees the publication of the Modernisation Select Comm’s report on regional accountability, which is expected to expound the role for Regional Ministers, and the potential Regional Select Committee.  A new inquiry into RDAs has been launched by the BERR select comm.  Public Admin are having an evidence session on oversight of the new Stats Authority.  CLG select comm, when not investigating public toilets (a valid topic, I know, but it provides me with a chuckle), is looking at the roles of central and local government.  Obviously I’m keeping members updated, and responding where appropriate.

I’ve also got to try and push on RO input to the local economic assessment duty, including the opportunity to pilot via IDeA.  They seemed to be waiting on us, and I need to try and get it moving.  Bottoming out exactly what the possibilities are should be the next step, but I need to speak to Phil to make sure I’m not rushing in where angels fear to tread.

The work spot, 17.06.08

Onward and onward…

May was marked by a trip to Prague, to the Regional Studies Association conference, to give a co-authored paper on “local and regional economic development: a perspective from the research practitioner community in the English regions”.  The conference itself was addressed by the Czech prime minister (language issues rather predominated) and an EU commissioner, which made for an interesting introduction to a differing set of European priorities.  I found a session given by the chap in CLG responsible for spatial economic policy of interest (talking about the SNR supporting paper “Why Place Matters”) and it was fascinating to hear an academic response to a policy paper.  I encountered Les Budd from the Open University and we had a brief chat about Leitch… and also Chris MacDonald from Monash University, who’s evaluating emda as part of his research.  The presentation went well, despite being put into a workstream with some fairly divergent subjects, and being on at 5.30pm at the end of a long, hot, sticky day.  I’ve been polishing up the full written version, for submission to the conference website, and for hosting on the ARO site.  I also managed to get sight of a paper written by Peter Wells (Sheffield Hallam) on the impact of think tanks on regional policy, which I will try to utilise in the future.

The workshop on June 2nd went well, and taking a more interactive approach seemed to work well (and was something I was keen to do).  Contacts were reestablished with key CLG folk, and with a new BERR team member, and Ian Gordon from LSE had some really interesting views to add.  The venue worked well, and the organisation went relatively smoothly, though I could have done without spending the time stuffing delegate packs (especially when I thought I’d sorted the admin team to do that), and without having to run across London to locate a vegan sandwich when the caterers let me down.  There were two main stumbling blocks, though.  The final session had been left relatively open, relying on the conference chair to draw together key points from the day and open it up to the floor.  That didn’t work – so whether we need to have a more established panel, or another speaker, or some kind of summary – that needs further thought for any future events.  The second issue is the write up.  I have drafted a conference report, but it was felt that something which drew out member contributions to implementing SNR more explicitly was needed.  I’ve drafted another paper which does that (which I need feed back on), plus a response directly to the questions posed in SNR consultation.  All of which has meant spending plenty of time on that, rather than being guided by member input as I hoped.  Still, I’ve already had one really positive response on my work, from a Chief Exec (not the ARO Chair), which is much appreciated.

Lobbying is another issue on which progress has been made, but more needs to be done.  A comms consultant has been engaged, and is leading us through the process of identifying stakeholders, and drafting stakeholder, Parliamentary / Whitehall and media strategies.  As I felt when I attended my training, it’s all very much common sense – but it is having the time to develop and implement the plan which is important, particularly alongside my other responsibilities.

I’ve been trying to introduce new online applications to support the collaborative work of the members, adding to the wiki by using online text editing.  Some have taken to this more readily than others, but I plan to try and drive more traffic to the wiki by putting the agenda and papers for the next Board meeting on there, as well as asking members to spend time inputting to the research database.  It might be of value for me to add some of that detail, then ask them to amend it – getting things terribly, chronically wrong has definitely been the most effective way of getting input to date!

The work spot, 10.04.08

More tea, and more, and more!  I was on cup #5 by about 11am yesterday (but that’s not surprising when I started work promptly – I love working from home.  Today I was up and out of the house by 7.40am but I didn’t get here til nearly 8.30am, standing all the way on the bus. Pah).

This week’s quandary is a meditation on partnership working, a.k.a. delegating to those you’ve no power to delegate to.  Restrictions on budget / resources, plus the desire to make members feel that they are part of a network, and to use their connections and expertise, means that I need to get them involved in activities – which they are (mostly, subject to their own restrictions) happy to do.  Converting that into activity is a challenge of its own.

And in having neither the right to delegate, nor the right to manage that delegation, I’m in a difficult position when, for whatever reason, members don’t deliver what I need.  I can only rely on the group’s desire for progress, which is difficult to corral outside meeting times.

In addition, it would be all too easy to become dependent on those who are able to input – and as ever, I need to demonstrate a balance of requests and returns for members.

I am making progress – but I feel more than ever that a mentor, someone who understands the conceptual situations I encounter (rather than needing to know personalities and so forth) would be of great value.  How to find that person, approach them and then be assured that I’ve got the right mentor, is another challenge entirely.

But – time to remind myself of my positive steps!

Website – content (mostly) updated.  Understanding of the CMS radically improved.  Method found for hosting secure pages, documents and a research database to which members can upload / edit / delete records.

Presenting statistics – a joint event with this region’s observatory.  One speaker tapped up recently.  One to chase.

An open event of interest to users – principle agreed, venue sorted, date to be agreed.  Contact is happy with all I am able to contribute at present.

Lobbying – two key points of contact agreed in principle and have given availability.  Input forthcoming from other members.

Workplan – revised edition dispatched.

Business plan – version 2 underway.

The post I drafted on Friday and forgot to upload…

[Looking back - and looking forwards]

This week has been one which has seen some important developments in the world of ARO.

Monday March 31st saw the release of the consultation document, outlining proposals for legislation to implement aspects of the sub-national review of economic development of regeneration.  The document has been jointly released by CLG and BERR, reflecting BERR’s responsibility for regional economic development, and CLG’s overview of disparity, disadvantage and issues around place, neighbourhoods and localities.  The move through all recent government documentation has been towards a broader vision of growth – beyond GVA, beyond economic growth in isolation or as an end to itself, providing a more explicit understanding of the opportunities and results that economic growth could or can provide.

This development has meant that there is something of an inevitable schism between regional and local government, not least with those two tiers reporting to different departments.  The hope was that this document would provide a real demonstration of how those departments would work together.  To some extent, it does. There is something of a dearth of substantive development in the document, over and above the proposals around local economic assessments – something of great interest to ARO members.  The suggestions from yesterday’s training on public affairs has meant that I’m now in the process of contacting the Bill drafting team – not an opportunity that I had previously considered, but now of key importance in influencing at the appropriate time and level.

Tuesday was the opening of the LARIA conference.  Perhaps due to my being unable to attend more than one day, I didn’t get a real sense of how those in the data and intelligence community at local level would be responding to these recent developments.  However, I did see a great presentation by Rob Radburn from Leicester council – he’s an engaging and self-deprecating speaker, and the topics he and his co-presenter (from City University) were really interesting although there was a suggestion that they covered too much in a short time, leaving an audience suffering from information overload.  I think, given the right audience, that a day’s event combining Ed Swires-Hennessey and Rob Radburn (good practice in presentation for everyone – then new development – make it interactive and so on) would be a real winner.

Yesterday’s training in London was also very successful, despite not providing me with a magical silver bullet to solve all my public affairs needs!  The key messages really reinforced what I already knew – make and maintain contacts, think carefully about your objectives and then use resources wisely to target appropriate routes.  A strong argument was made for the need to actually spend some time around the politicians and civil servants you hope to influence – i.e. in Westminster.  I’m going to have to make a more convincing argument for the hot-desking idea mooted previously, plus make some plans to attend select committees etc.  Having identified this as one of two key roles, I will need to persuade ARO that this is a good investment of time and personnel.