At Labour party conference this week in Manchester and a strange atmosphere hangs over it. After 13 years of being the party of government there is obviously some disappointment and it’s strange to see former Ministers walking around on their own without the usual entourage of suits with clipboards surrounding them. However, with the election of a new leader there is also a mood of optimism amongst many delegates that the page has been turned on new labour and things have moved on.
Spoke today at the Supply Conference North West on how the public and private sectors can work together better. It was mainly a private sector audience of suppliers to local government.
After putting the economic context facing public services at present I went on to talk about the interdependency of the public and private sectors upon each other in local economies. I have explained our economic footprint research and the £1.64 concept on this blog many times before.
Spent today at the Liberal Democrats annual conference in Liverpool and attended a fringe on how to deliver a low carbon future. The speakers were Doug Parr from Greenpeace, Barry Neville from Centrica and more importantly Chris Huhne the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
The blows just keep on coming, it seems. A recent report claiming council managers are unproductive is the latest in the drip, drip, drip attack on public servants already facing slashed budgets, frozen pay and pension cuts.