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Forward together………………………The new Chairman’s Acceptance Speech from the Annual general Meeting at the WES at York 25 April 2010.

Forward together…………………………..

We live in changing times and your election of me today as your Chair for the coming year is itself a change. It is a change that gives me an exceptionally proud moment as a Yorkshireman being invited to assume the National Chair in this ancient City of York. This City has seen much change over the centuries and I am mindful of the great events in 1541 during the course of Henry VIII’s great Progress to the North. Within a mile of this very room, at Fulford Cross, the King had the ‘Local Government’ of the day pay him homage on pain of death as penalty for their part in the Northern uprising five years before. Our own changing times have not yet reached that pitch but as they say ‘a week and four days is a long time in politics’! This change of Chair is one that I hope SLG will look back on as positive and one that gives me a significant personal challenge to serve you the Membership of our organisation to the very best of my ability. I accept that challenge with my humble thanks for the faith and trust you have placed in me and I undertake to endeavour to live up to your expectations.
I must of course pay tribute to my predecessor Guy Goodman. There I was, with many others, this time last year in Warwick expecting that the then forthcoming NEC meetings of 2009/10 would be chaired by a figure from the lower end of the Nigel Robert’s school of sartorial casualness, in other words, all beach shirts and flip flops. But no, at the first meeting, the new Chair arrived suited and booted and immediately demonstrated in a whirl of organisational ability and industry that SLG had made a wise choice. Amongst many other things Guy has given us the ‘Chair’s Blog’. The Chairs Page morphed onto something that can be ‘hit’ on the web site. This is a fine new tradition which I fully intend to continue once I have worked out what the acronym means. Early advice informs me that it could mean ‘best left off Guy’ or ‘better local organisational governance’. However matter not what it is called, it is yet another effective means of communication with our membership. Guy has successfully steered us through many significant matters including the issues surrounding the Practicing Certificate Fee and changes in Regulation, Alternative Business Structures, Pro Bono working for Local Government Practitioners and the inaugural Welsh Conference. Guy’s pace, drive and leadership has continued throughout his lunar induced 13 months in the Chair and SLG is grateful for it and to him. With the greatest of pleasure and the congratulations of SLG I would now like to present him with this token of our thanks.
In accepting this office I realise at once that it can never be one individual who takes the organisation forward and I am delighted that the team for the coming year includes as Vice Chair Bev Cullen from Lancashire County Council and as Deputy Vice Chair Helen McGrath from the London Borough of Hounslow. I look forward to working with them both and indeed with all members of the National Executive Committee. On this subject it is important for us to remember that all members of the NEC, the Branch Executives and the SIG Convenors and our Law Society Council Members are all volunteers. They somehow manage to find the time and the inclination over and above the demands of their day job to perform the many and varied tasks that go to making SLG a thriving member led organisation. It is this, the spirit of the volunteer that is one of the major attributes of SLG itself and long may it continue to shine. There is another busy year to come and I have an expectation that all your representatives at national level will be required ever more to ‘earn their expenses’. Likewise in the Branches and the SIGs we must strive to give full benefit to our membership so that they can show to their employers that continued membership of our organisation is to their advantage as well.
So where will this journey that we are embarking upon today take us?
The rails upon which our continued development runs are of course contained in our Aims, Objectives and Values as set out in ‘Our Plan 2009’ and we are now entering year 2 of that current 3 year plan. Our Plan is kept under review by the NEC and I anticipate that it will move forward as intended in accordance with existing timescales. The foundations for 2012 and beyond will be laid this year and honed in 2011 into Our Future Plan setting out continuing Aims and Objectives for 2012 and beyond.
We are however living and working in changing times as I said in opening. The working landscape is changing in some ways beyond recognition as the effects of the recession filter or in some cases flood their way down. This could indeed be a painful process for many local authorities and their legal departments as they strive to maintain services and good governance against ever pressured and decreasing budgets. There is undoubtedly more to come and we must play our part in ensuring that our members are equipped and remain ready to add real value to the activities of their authorities. We must guard against the dangers of a constant ‘more from less’ strategy. Any organisation has a critical mass below which it is severely at risk of implosion either through lack of time to make effective judgments and decisions or the unavailability of prompt proper and effective advice. Those who govern our budgets and seek to impose what they perceive as necessary change upon us must remember that in addition to the authority of our employers we work to external professional standards and regulation. Any change or pressure that threatens those standards or places our members in a position where it is impossible for them to work properly to those standards should and must be resisted.
The political landscape is also currently shall we say ‘under review’ and could be, if the pollsters are to be believed, about to change in a way that none of us have experienced before. Again our members must be ready to provide a sure source of advice and guidance even in new and somewhat uncharted territory. I know they will be.
In the past year the NEC has, in order to reflect the changing times, looked inwardly by way of a review of its own methods of operation and governance. That has resulted in some changes and one of the consequences is that it is now time to look out from the centre. We need to look to the Branches and continue the theme of review to ensure that all our members wherever they may be are properly represented by a Branch structure that is fit for purpose enabling them to access in the easiest way the member services that SLG has to offer. Some of the forthcoming change I expect to occur in a natural evolutionary way. For example the development of an ‘all Wales Branch’ as a consequence of the widening separation of the jurisdictions of England and Wales and following on from the undoubted success of the inaugural Welsh Conference last autumn. I would like to see that conference become a regular fixture in the SLG calendar.
I have said many times that the lifeblood of this organisation is the collective knowledge of its membership gained of years of dedicated learning and service. We must continue to provide a mechanism for that collective knowledge to be harnessed, developed and above all shared. It is going to be ever more difficult to achieve this particular goal in the stringent financial times ahead. One way we can do this by continuing to develop our website so that it is increasingly ‘the place to be’ for knowledge, information and networking. We must continue to promote and encourage the vital work going on in the Branches and the Special Interest Groups. We must facilitate the development of the ‘virtual SIG’ as being a cost effective mechanism for the sharing of knowledge and the development of best practice. It is the intention to hold a SIG Convenors Conference in the autumn of this year to establish a working basis for taking all these matters forward.
All of you will be aware that over the period of this Conference there have been a number of Focus Groups looking at the format of Weekend School itself. You will also be aware that with the assistance of the LGLST this year’s delegate fee was set at £395. It is intended to carry out a full review of the structure and format of the WES so that we can ensure that it not only continues to be the premier event of the SLG year but continues to give the best value for money in the years ahead. All members will be encouraged to participate in this process and make their views known. It is of course your WES.
We must continue to expand our contact with The Law Society, The Solicitors Regulation Authority and other professional and legal groupings working with and alongside them to mutual benefit, to share knowledge and to develop law and best practice. There are many lessons we can learn from looking at and listening to the way others do things and SLG and its members have much to contribute to the legal and local governmental world.
We must also look to the family that is local government and in particular to SLG’s immediate family namely LGG Limited, the LGLST and ACSeS. That immediate family shares a common ground both in terms of its interests and the majority of its people. It would be foolhardy in tomorrow’s environment to compete for that common ground and it therefore follows that it would be wise to consider how best it may be occupied or shared in the interests of the family. That we shall do.
So as I embark on my personal odyssey as your Chair for the coming year, SLG itself embarks upon a journey of potential change both imposed by external influences and self sought. I ask for your opinions, ideas and support along the route to the future. Let us go forward together.
Thank you.