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Kirklees Council is leading the way on the use of social media to promote local democracy, with their councillors and the Governance Service clocking up over 9,000 tweets and over 4,000 followers in the last year or so. Their Council, Cabinet and Scrutiny are all web cast with viewing figures into the thousands. Democratic engagement is taken one step further with Council meetings being "tweeted" from both inside and outside the chamber. Kirklees is at the forefront of "Tweeting Democracy".

A quick flick through the pages of the latest Kirklees Councillor Development Bulletin gives the reader an idea of why this authority is nationally recognised as being at the forefront of councillor development. In addition to gaining Charter Plus status last year, Kirklees also won the Association of Public Sector Excellence's Award for the best member development initiative for their groundbreaking learning resources on Corporate Parenting.

21st Century Councillor was invited to present at the morning session of the LGA Independent Group Councillors spring conference.

The title of the conference is 'Big Society - Local Choice'. The presentation covered the implications of the Localism Bill, and what big society and localism means to councillors.

Local Government Leadership, Urban Forum and Involve jointly organised Local Society because of a shared belief in the need for greater collaboration between the public and social sectors, and a reinvigorated role for both civil society and for councillors and the council. The Local Society seminar on 4 February brought together leaders from across sectors - local government, central government, civil society and business - who are changing the way public services are delivered, and public needs are met.

More details are on the dedicated website www.localsociety.org.uk

The full report of the day’s discussions is now available to download here.

Suffolk County Council has been working with Local Government Leadership since August 2010. As well as workshops and presentations on the 21st Century Councillor model, we have also produced an an in-depth report and audio slideshows about councillor experiences in Suffolk.

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The Connecting Communities programme, funded by the Local Leadership centre was established to help tackle issues such as rising unemployment, worries about young people, anti social behaviour and recent migration which is perceived to have changed communities. In this project Coventry wanted to explore how the web and social media tools could help, resulting in some guidelines to create a long term social media strategy, as well putting together some measurable effects to recognise success.

As part of Swindon's innovative programme Connecting People, Connecting Places, the council worked with members to help them to build on already strong local connections with residents and businesses and bring them into the work of the council. Swindon wanted to strengthen local social ties through the use of social media and tap into hyperlocal websites, working with both residents and representatives alike.

The presentation below was given to a group of 30 Independent Councillors attending a workshop in the afternoon of their annual conference at LGA Smith Square. The discussion covered much of the current issues to do with big society, community engagement and how councillors undertake their responsibilities. As Independent Councillors it was recognised that they already understand the role of 'non party political' activity which is attractive to communities and voters.

Reaching the hearts of Herefordshire, restoring confidence in rural democracy is published today at the County Council Network (CCN) conference in Westminster, London reporting on the work in Herefordshire, a 21st Century Councillor exemplar authority.

The programme has involved councillors, officers, community groups and residents coming together to have facilitated conversations about their local areas - driven by resident's interests and concerns.

One of the most impressive and powerful features of Reaching the hearts of Herefordshire is the way in which a simple, straightforward process - summarised on page 13 of the report - can have far-reaching consequences for the local community and local democracy. Indeed, the entire process need take no longer than ten weeks from beginning to end.

The impact of citizen-led neighbourhood websites: national survey

You are invited to contribute to a short national survey (just 9 questions) on the impact of citizen-led neighbourhood websites and the implications for councils.

Urban Forum and bassac - both national charities with a local voluntary and community group membership - have recently published Local Action: The Handy Guide for communities working with councillors. The guide looks at the practical ways that community groups can work effectively with councillors on local campaigns and projects. By looking at the current policy context and delving deeper into the experiences of 10 case studies, the report examines how community groups can harness the potential of joint working with their local councillors.

This workshop looked at the different roles of being a councillor, particularly in what can councillors should or could be doing in response to massive challenges to spending and budget discussions.

The workshop split into four groups. They were given a list of different roles councillors can undertake - every from helping people to scrutinising the council. We asked them to come up with three that best describe what a councillor should do.

The report 21st Century Councillor has published this week along with TweetyHall, Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) and Local Government Chronicle (LGC) looking at the lessons from the recent elections about the use of social media by politicians, parties and citizen activism.

The report features casestudies from Cllr Dean Russell (St Albans), Cllr Antonia Bance (Oxford City) and Cllr Mark Gracey (Purbeck).

Read the blog post on TweetyHall or download the report.

This was the angst plea from Cllr David Clifford of Rushmoor BC while he awaited the results of his Post Graduate Certificate in Local Governance for Councillors. David, along with his fellow councillor-students, was among the first to graduate from this programme last year at London South Bank University. For David, the anxiety was worth it! He reflected "This course has taught me more in the last twelve months than I could ever have imagined about local governance and my role as an elected member of a local authority. There is no question in mind that I am a better community advocate as a result." David has gone on to study for a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) at LSBU so he is getting used to the anxious wait for results!

The programme was hailed as a huge success by other participants too, receiving such comments such as "I can honestly say" confessed Cllr Ruth O'Keeffe of East Sussex County Council, "I have never been on a course that held my attention in the way the Postgraduate Certificate course has done. It has been consistently interesting and has informed my practice as a councillor in a way I did not think an 'academic' course would be likely to".

The healthcheck result for the East Midlands was presented to members and officers from their regional network on 30th June 2010. We discussed both the results of the Induction healthcheck, and a presentation from Judi Billing on the work the 21st Century Programme has done with Leicestershire County Council.

Since we last looked at results for the East of England various 'movers and shakers' in the top ten have gone up and down, but Waveny DC still tops the region. The results were presented to the E of E Member Development Network in Cambridge, June 24th 2010:

The results from the North East were presented to the Member Development Network in Gateshead, June 15th 2010. Watch the slideshow to find out which three authorities 'scored' the highest from those who filled it out:

The top ten results from West Midlands are presented here, along with some interesting data on what are the ten most, and least, common items on an induction programme.

The results were presented to WM Member Development Officer & Member Network in Birmingham, May 27th 2010.

The top ten results from Yorkshire and the Humber are presented here, along with some interesting data on what are the ten most, and least, common items on an induction programme.

The results were presented to Y&H Member Development Officer Network in Wakefield, May 18th 2010.

The results also include our first council who scored 100%! watch the slideshow to find out which one:

For the last year we have been running an online tool which gives local authorities and councillors an idea of how their council is 'rated' in terms of member induction. We are half way through providing individual breakdowns for each region - but as we are one week to go before elections nationally and locally, we wanted to publish the results so far for each of the individual question as a helpful guide to officers reviewing their plans.

The report also features a casestudy from Leicestershire County Council, who has been working with 21st Century Councillor since last year on their member induction programme.

You can download the document here.

The results of the member induction health check for the north west today showed Blackpool tops the list of local authorities investing in their member development strategies.

Over 230 responses have been collected, with results still to come for the East and West Midlands, North East, South West and Yorkshire and the Humber.

The presentation today was to member development officers from authorities in the North West, hosted by North West Employers.

The 'Social Media Guide for Councillors' is launched today as a joint publication edited and put together by the IDeA's social media expert, Ingrid Koehler and turned into an online resource for local government by the 21st Century Councillor team. This follows on from the successful 'TweetyHall' (which tracks the tweets from local councillors) launched last year by the Leadership Centre for Local Government in partnership with FutureGov

The guide is aimed at councillors who are already some way to understanding the potential of using the web - and want to take it to the next step in terms of using all the free tools and resources that are now online.

"Good communication with residents is the bread and butter of most councillor's day to day interactions," says Ingrid, "and we are certainly not suggesting that social media is a substitute for good old fashioned knocking on doors, or leaflets that tell residents what is going on in the council or in their local area.

"But many councillors realise that by using social media they are able to target new audiences and 'listen in' and indeed contribute to conversations happening outside the formal political sphere"

The site features casestudies from local councillors, top tips, top myths, helpful links to online video guides and much more - all at the guide to using social media