There are 144 item(s) tagged with the keyword "Apse".
Francis Maude’s announcement to scrap the code of practice on workforce matters, which protects workers on outsourced public sector contracts from having different pay and conditions to colleagues working alongside them is a regressive step taking us back ten years prior to when the code was negotiated through the social partners forum which I was involved in for APSE.
A senior central government figure recently asked me what a transformed council should look like in four or five years’ time. Whilst this is a fairly obvious question to ask, then a fairly obvious answer to give is that it depends on what you want it to look like.
It’s APSE’s annual performance networks seminar at Blackpool and despite the horrendous weather most of the delegates appear to have made it.
Mad dash around London today for a series of meetings aimed at developing a couple of research projects that APSE is keen to undertake on green jobs and service delivery.
Spoke at LACA North East conference today in Durham on the impact of spending cuts on local government catering services.
I raised the point about the impact of the cuts with Scottish Government Minister for Children and Early Years, Adam Ingram, who gave the keynote address at the conference and he gave his commitment that the Government viewed healthy eating as a priority and would seek to protect this agenda from the impact of the cuts.
It's APSE's annual environment conference in Stoke and I am first up to speak this morning on the economic climate facing local government. The audience today is mainly Directors and Heads of Service from local authorities with a sprinkling of elected members. With less than a week to go until George Osborne delivers the Comprehensive Spending Review it’s hard to be upbeat about the fiscal challenge local government faces. I make the quip that my staff will be handing out anti-depressants at the end of my presentation and that we will also have a free phone number to offer counselling.
Give the opening address at the Local Government Staff Commission in Northern Ireland’s conference in County Down today. The session is about the challenges facing local government in the UK and there isn’t a shortage of things to talk about, which could have been the reason I slightly overran!
Attend the Conservative party conference Sunday and Monday and we hold a fringe with South Warwickshire Conservative Association on ‘getting more bang for the public buck’ through procurement, with Neil McInroy from CLES speaking with APSE’s Mark Bramah.
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.