Officers and members
Council structures, member-officer relations and political acumen.
A half day on working with politicians: how local government developed, types of council, political leadership, member-officer relationships, the machinery of decisions, political communications and applied political acumen.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 5 hours
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Council officers who work with elected members, from team managers to chief officers
Overview
The quality of the relationship between one member and one officer decides whether good governance holds. This first half of Working with politicians traces local government from 1835 to the Localism Act, then sets out types of council and governance models, illustrated by Folkestone and Hythe. Political leadership draws on Kakabadse, Hambrick and Mason and doctoral research in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and member-officer relationships on Eric Berne's transactional analysis. The machinery of delegation, key decisions and call-in follows, with lessons from Thurrock. The closing section explores Drew Westen and Clive Veroni on political communications and a capstone comparing the Isle of Wight's cross-party budget with Birmingham's bin dispute.
Aims
The course exists to develop officers who understand the structures their council works within, build working relationships with members around shared goals, judge where their delegated authority ends, and apply political acumen early enough to make a difference before a situation turns.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Compare the leader and cabinet, committee and mayoral models, and explain how your council's model shapes when you engage members.
- Assess whether a decision sits within your delegated authority, weighing its political weight as well as financial thresholds.
- Apply a four part checklist of hats, stakeholder mapping, ego states and trade offs to read a live political situation in time.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Explain the scale and breadth of what English councils deliver, using the four service categories of caring, educating and housing, shaping places and everyday essentials.
- Distinguish two tier, unitary, combined authority and parish arrangements and identify which council delivers a given service in each.
- Distinguish discretionary from prescribed activity, and transactional from transformational leadership, and explain how members and officers sit differently on each.
- Distinguish political from managerial leadership and explain where the two legitimately overlap.
- Explain how your council's governance model shapes how and when you engage members on a decision.
- Identify the multiple audiences and time pressures a council statement faces, and check a draft against each before it is sent.
- Select and combine the right tools from the programme to read a live political situation.
- Describe the landmark reforms from 1835 to 2011 and explain how each one shaped today's council map.
Built from 7 modules.
5 hours of learning.
- 01What Local Government Is and How It Got HereFoundations of Local Government43 min
- 02Types of Local Government and Models of AuthorityFoundations of Local Government39 min
- 03Political LeadershipWorking in a Political Environment45 min
- 04Member-Officer RelationshipsWorking in a Political Environment41 min
- 05Working With MembersWorking in a Political Environment43 min
- 06Political CommunicationsWorking in a Political Environment42 min
- 07Applied Political AcumenWorking in a Political Environment37 min