Working with members
Political leadership, member-officer relations and acumen.
A focused three and a half hours on the member-officer relationship: political leadership, transactional analysis, governance and delegation machinery and ethical political communication.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Working in a Political Environment
- 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
Officers who advise or work alongside elected members
Overview
Good governance succeeds or quietly fails in the working relationship between members and officers. Working with members explores that relationship and the machinery around it. It examines political leadership drawing on Jaques, Kakabadse and Kakabadse, Hambrick and Mason and doctoral research at Rhondda Cynon Taff, then Berne's transactional analysis and the LGA's 2025 guidance on member-officer protocols. It explains cabinet, committee and mayoral models, schemes of delegation and the decision cycle, with Thurrock as a warning, and Westen and Veroni on ethical political communication. A capstone applies the toolkit to the Isle of Wight's cross-party budget and Birmingham's bin dispute.
Aims
This programme aims to develop the political acumen of officers who work alongside elected members, strengthening relationships built on a shared goal, confident handling of governance machinery and ethical communication, so that advice is given and decisions are made well at the boundary between political and managerial leadership.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Distinguish political from managerial leadership and use transactional analysis to improve a working relationship with an elected member.
- Explain how the scheme of delegation, decision cycle and call-in work, and assess where a delegation boundary risks being lost.
- Apply political communication principles and acumen tools to a live issue, framing messages ethically for multiple audiences under pressure.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Distinguish discretionary from prescribed activity, and transactional from transformational leadership, and explain how members and officers sit differently on each.
- Describe the Cabinet Team concept and its three capabilities, character, competence and relational competence, and explain why cohesion ties them together.
- 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.
Built from 3 parts.
3 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01Two roles, one purposeMember-officer relations and leadershipBitesize2 modules
- 02Earning councillors' trustWorking with elected membersBitesize1 module
- 03Reading the room politicallyPolitical communications and political acumenBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Working in a Political Environment topic, also sold whole as Politically savvy.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours 30 minutes, £69
- The whole topicExplore, Politically savvy, 6 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
Also part of: Serving your community well, Working with politicians