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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

Today we published the breakdown of results from the East of England member induction healthcheck and led a discussion on how Councils could better support the role of members in Councils, particularly where there are Independent councillors.

At the LGA Independent Group regional meeting in Bury St Edmunds, councillors expressed their interest in the Leadership Centre's publication 'Cabinet Member for you Ward' and arguments about scrutiny and community leadership roles.

At a conference in London Councils we were asked to present some key questions and themes from the 'Cabinet Member for your Ward' publication and the 21st century work in Hackney. Cllr Erica Kemp, the co-author of this book which focusses on the perspectives of three ward councillors and their neighbourhood officer in navigating around their local strategic and community issues.

Click this link to dowload a copy of Cabinet Member for your Ward

Over 200 members and officers have now compared their member induction programmes against our online checklist.

We provided a breakdown for the South East today showi`ng the Isle of Wight Council tops the region in terms of support offered to Members, polling 89% against our benchmark. Watch the slideshow to find out more about what the checklist covers, and what the regional and national averages are now.

LIVE RESULTS HERE! Today (Thursday 26th Nov) we will be asking anyone who is following the myPublicServices Conference to help us categorise 384 citizen-facing services that local government currently provides.

Along with help from FutureGov's Carrie Bishop, we are running a workshop in the afternoon with delegates examining what the role of the elected member be in the 21st Century.

175 members and officers from over 150 local authorities have used the induction healthcheck to assess their current member induction and wider member development strategy. Some of the key results were presented to Capital Ambition's one-day conference 'Towards May 2010: excellence in member induction' at Southwark Council's new offices in Tooley Street SE1

21st Century Councillor has been working with Leicestershire to develop a member development programme for the autumn after the June 2009 elections to equip existing and new members with skills and information to maximise what they can do as elected councillors. Watch the video to find out more - or visit the Leicestershire's casestudy page.

21st Century Councillor formally launched it's 'Manifesto for a Modern Local Politics' at the London Councils' councillor summit. It sets out ten challenges for the modern councillor and Local Authority.

Work is going on to explore and promote each of the areas from 'exemplar' authorities to demonstrate how to put these ideas into practice.

Swindon are working with the Leadership Centre for local government and FutureGov to explore ways of using new methods of on and offline engagement to help councillors engage with local communities in new and interesting ways as part of the 21st Century Councillors programme. Here, Gavin Calthrop from Swindon Borough Council explains a bit about the project and how it fits into Swindon's wider aspirations as a forward thinking local authority.

Cllr Merrick Cockell is Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Chairman of London Councils, Chairman of the Conservative Councillors' Association and a member of the Conservative Party Board. He has been at the forefront of championing a new agenda for councillors, including spearheading the www.beacouncillor.org.uk initiative in London.

Cllr Ann Lucas (Coventry) is a member of Labour's National Executive Committee. Earlier this year she agreed to be the Labour Party's 'champion' for 21st Century Councillor and its sister programme, 'be a councillor'.

Cllr Tim Pickstone (Bury) is the Chief Executive of the Association of Liberal Democrats Councillors (ALDC) and has been supporting this programme on behalf of the Lib Dems