All Change – New Horizons for Local Government was IEWM’s annual local government conference, run in partnership with Warwick Business School and held on Friday, December 9th, 2011.

The event was aimed at elected members, chief executives and senior officers from the West Midlands and beyond. The Conference featured Leaders and Chief Executives Think Tank sessions, topical workshops, an innovative ‘unconference’ and supplier marketplace –all focused on the themes of innovation, transformation and change.

Digital Nomads were commissioned to develop a Live Event Blog, to recruit and manage a team of social media enthusiasts to report the event online and to run the ‘unconference’ discussion session in the afternoon.

By visiting the Event & Live Blog you can view slideshows from the conference, blog posts and some of the comments posted online during the day. The site has since been used at other events including workshops on personalisation and dementia and at the Local Government Association’s annual conference.

Here’s some refectinos on the event from our very own Laura Fox:-

What stood out for me

1.  Dai Powell’s session on Social Enterprise

I found this very informative.  Having only a general “feel” for what Social Enterprises are I left the session with a greater understanding of the benefits these can bring not only to those for whom the “social” aspect is focussed (which is the “easy” link to make) but also for the Local Authority commissioning the services in terms of the risk transfer and the common values and goals that the “social” aspect delivers. I was also left feeling re-assured about the set up of a Social Enterprise which is “asset bound” to ensure profits will continue to be re-invested as appropriate and not creamed off into someone’s pocket.

Will I take any action or change my behaviour after listening to this session (a very good personal measure of success for me)?

Yes.  I’m going to find out what social enterprises there are in my area just because it’s peaked an interest for me, and also have a chat with a colleague of mine in our Procurement Dept. to see what scope she thinks there is for encouraging more Social Enterprises in our area.  It may not get anywhere, but there again it may and that’s got to be worth a 10 minute chat!

2.  The “unconference”

Three things struck me about this:

Firstly, I suspect that the majority of people in the room hadn’t experienced this style of delivering conference content before.  It was therefore a bit of a risk to try a something different, and that in itself spoke volumes about the commitment of the IEWM to “change”.

Secondly, even though the majority of people were new to this method, to see a queue of people lining up to put forward their “pitch” for a subject topic was really great to see.  After all, what an opportunity for delegates to actually put forward their own personal topic and have access to a wealth of knowledge and experience brought together from the other delegates to discuss it.  For me that HAS to be a winner for any conference attendee.

Thirdly, the quality of the discussion in the two sessions I attended.  It was fantastic to see a mix of different opinions and levels of understanding around the topics discussed.  Use of social media in Local Gov’t seemed to be a “hot topic” and there was a good mix of people ranging from those who remain sceptical, those who seemed to see that there is a need but remain cautious and those who have embraced it already and could share their experience.

I  learned that Coventy allow their officers a 2 hour lunchtime slot where they have access to facebook and am wondering whether this is something my own authority could follow suit on.  Will I take action on this? Again it’s a “yes” I’m going to find out a bit more about this from Coventry colleagues and send on my findings to my IT and Comms colleagues.  Will it have the desired outcome? Who knows, but again, for half an hour of my time it may be worth a try!

3.  “Culture is everything”!

There seemed to be one prevailing “topic” throughout everything for me. It isn’t rocket science or anything we don’t know already, but it’s there.  All the time.

The need to change the “culture”.  The success of any change implementation always seems to come back to this.  It seems that in general local authorities think they can manage the culture, but on the transformation changes I have seen in my own area the learning always includes a section on how the culture was a main factor in slowing down the implementation. One of the sessions talked about how we seem to be willing to bring in expertise on specifics for IT implementation but we seem to be averse to bringing in specialists for implementation of the change in culture.  Will I take action on this? Yes, but it will be a different type of action this time.  I’m going to use some of this learning to apply to my MSc. Subject on “Managing Change”.

I had attended the first LocalGovCamp in Birmingham in 2009, not knowing quite what to expect. I was impressed with the overwhelming enthusiasm and interest in developing creative solutions to everyday problems. The ‘grass-roots’ feel of the event made a refreshing change to the polished corporate offerings I’d grown so accustomed to. I learned a lot from attendance and subsequently presented proposals to my Chief Executive to enhance our use of social technologies, including an innovative ‘BarnsleyBUZZ’ enterprise social media pilot and an ‘Innovation Week’.

I found my use of online networks, particularly Twitter, grew quite rapidly and I connected with many interesting and innovative people who seemed to really care about local government and about making a difference to people’s lives. You could say I caught the bug. Along with a fellow village resident I’d met online, Kevin Campbell-Wright (@kevupnorth), I organised LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and Humber last year. We were really keen to move the game on and to make our unconference a little different. We had two main aims; to attract [some] senior managers and to engage with elected members. Regrettably, despite our best promotional efforts, supported by the region’s Chief Executive’s, we failed spectacularly on the first point.

The event was still judged a success and the online conversation had a social reach in excess of 35,000 people, but we failed to interest the movers and shakers, the people of real influence in local government who by and large are still living in an analogue world.

We were more successful on the second aim and ran interactive sessions for Councillors with the assistance of Carl Whistlecraft and Steven Tuck from Kirklees (@gr8governance and @steventuck) and Councillors Simon Cooke from Bradford and Tim Cheetham from Barnsley (@simonmagus and @cllrtim).

So, I attended this year’s event hoping that the pressures upon local government finances would have encouraged more senior officer participation. I’d imagined more of my peers would be searching for innovative and creative solutions to the problems we face, leaving no stone unturned so to speak. I was a little disappointed to find otherwise.

The 200 or so attendees again demonstrated that there is genuine talent within the sector and an interest in innovation that transcends the traditional 9 to 5. However, it was all too apparent that many of these people are held back, they are blocked from affecting change, from doing things differently and from doing different things. In many cases they are frustrated by their lack of influence and by local government’s resistance to change and bottom up innovation.

It seems clear to me that this needs to change. We need to be more agile, more adaptive and better able to encourage and nurture grass-roots, low cost creativity. I’m less clear on how we actually do that.

Local Government has barely acknowledged the many opportunities presented by digital and social technologies. The scale of disruptive change is not fully appreciated by some senior decision makers. Meanwhile citizens and communities are increasingly living in digitally enabled ways and their expectations do not map onto our largely 19th century models of service delivery.

LocalGovCamp left me wondering how we can translate grassroots innovation and enthusiasm into change across local government. It seems to me that will be important in shaping our future.

Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa, located in northeastern Tanzania and is 19,340 feet (5,893m) high. Whilst the former volcano can be scaled without serious mountaineering skills, an ascent to the top of Africa represents a very serious challenge.

Barnsley Hospice provides care and support for hundreds of local people each year. Their main priority is to achieve the best possible quality of life for patients with a life limiting illness, whilst supporting their families, during the period of illness and bereavement.  As a specialist care provider, the range of skills offered includes, pain and symptom management, emotional support and terminal care at the end of life.

Barnsley Council has a strong history of supporting the Hospice through charitable activities, including walking events over the last couple of years.

You can read more about the trek and track our progress at www.bkct.org.uk or make a donation by credit/debit card using PayPal.

Oxfam hope the event will raise £600,000 for projects helping some of the world’s poorest people. The charity is looking to build on the success of last year’s inaugural event, which saw 664 participants – some from as far afield as Australia – raise almost £400,000 between them.

The 62-mile circular walk begins and ends in Skipton, taking in the stunning heights of Malham Edge and 2,100 ft Pen-y-Ghent as well as the rolling hills of Langstrothdale and Wharfedale. 

I find myself in serious New Year training mode, abstaining from all things grape related and dieting hard. 

The thought of attempting a challenge originally conceived as a training exercise for the Gurkhas has certainly helped focus my mind on the task ahead!

To be eligible to enter the event I need to raise a minimum of £500 for Oxfam. If you can, please visit my online fundraising page to make a donation to this very worthwhile cause.

Company sponsors should email a copy of their logo to mail@publicsectornomads.com for inclusion on this page and for front page mention in future updates on my progress.