From ward to cabinet
Ward, community, group and portfolio leadership.
Three hours on the councillor's role from ward to cabinet: casework, community leadership, group and chamber life, and the move into a portfolio.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours
- Where
- Being a Councillor
- Price
- £69
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
Councillors in Wales and England, from new ward members to portfolio holders
Overview
This Focus brings together five modules on the councillor's role from ward to cabinet. It opens with what a councillor is for, the types of council in Wales and England and the Nolan Committee's Seven Principles of Public Life. It then explores casework done well, its boundaries and John Seddon's idea of failure demand. Community leadership follows, drawing on Sir Michael Lyons' place-shaping, Robin Hambleton's five realms of civic leadership, the capitals of place and Arnstein's ladder of participation. Next comes group and chamber life: an adapted Johari window, loyalty and conscience, the whip and the owl, fox, donkey and sheep. It closes with portfolio leadership, Hambrick and Mason's upper echelons theory and a first hundred days in cabinet.
Aims
This programme aims to develop councillors who move confidently between the hats the role demands, turn individual cases into better services, lead their communities fairly and step into cabinet ready to decide the what and trust officers with the how.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply the Seven Principles of Public Life and your code of conduct to everyday decisions as a ward councillor, community leader and member of a group.
- Use casework patterns and community leadership roles to turn individual cases into service improvements and to bring quieter voices into decisions about your place.
- Plan your first hundred days as a portfolio holder, distinguishing political from managerial leadership and working with officers as one team.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Apply the Seven Principles of Public Life and your nation's code of conduct, including the rules on declaring interests, to everyday decisions.
- Use casework patterns, including signs of failure demand, to prioritise cases and to choose when to fix a problem and when to enable residents.
- Use the roles of convenor, broker, champion and challenger, and tools such as ward budgets and participatory budgeting, in your own community.
- Identify where the whip does not apply, and plan how you would dissent well when loyalty and conscience collide.
- Distinguish political from managerial leadership, applying the principle of deciding the what and trusting officers with the how across the five portfolio threads.
- Plan your first hundred days in a portfolio, using trust, role clarity, stakeholder involvement and collective responsibility to help policy land.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours of learning.
- 01Your ward, your placeThe councillor role, casework and community leadershipBitesize3 modules
- 02Group, chamber and cabinetThe political group, the chamber and portfolio leadershipBitesize2 modules
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours, £69
- The whole topicExplore, Elected to serve, 5 hours 30 minutes, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
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. Prices per person. Read the full terms