Blog: Friday 27th March - Paul Turner, LLG President: Some important updates

Greetings from Sunny Aberdeen. I say sunny but it’s also been rainy and snowy and the weather seems to change every 5 minutes.  That’s Aberdeen apparently.

I’m here representing LLG at the SOLAR – Scottish Association of Local Authority Lawyers and Administrators.  It’s been a great conference, with opportunity to meet colleagues from around Scotland. Life in Scotland is similar but different and it’s great to get a new perspective on challenges we face in England and Wales. Very grateful for Jennie Lawson, SOLAR President and Chief Officer (Governance) at Aberdeen City Council, for the invitation and I look forward to welcoming a SOLAR representative to the LLG Spring Conference in Birmingham – bookings for which are very much open LLG | Events.

Meanwhile back at LLG Towers (Virtual) we continue to work with MO colleagues and government on the reform of the standards process, we are working on the changes we will have to make to the membership fees when (if?) the number of LAs is greatly reduced by Government.

We also set the first year of membership fees for AMO.  The fee includes a free online ticket to the MO conference which can be upgraded to in person attendance for a very low fee.  The MO Helpline has been successfully launched – if you’re an AMO member please do make use of it for any query you may have or any support you may want to receive.

This year AMO fees will have to be collected separate from LLG membership, but the small (but mighty) team LLG are working to make system changes so that every authority can have one invoice for all LLG and  AMO memberships in the authority.  We absolutely know that AMO needs to grow the services it offers quickly – please bear with Rachel McKoy while she does this.

It we great to see people taking more interest in LLG’s elections with four candidates standing for Deputy Vice President.  The DVP becomes VP after a year and President after two.  Congratulations to Nichola Vine who won the election.  We elect this post every year so please do think about standing for this or other roles – LLG is your organisation and we need members to become involved in organising it.

Also congratulations to Chantelle Johnson who has been elected Junior National Lead.  Chantelle has just been admitted as a solicitor following an apprenticeship at Essex County Council.  She didn’t actually tell me she was standing so it was a – very pleasant – surprise to find out she had won.

Meanwhile good luck to all members involved in preparing for the 2026 local elections which promise to be administratively challenging in many ways.  We are looking at how we can support MOs dealing whose authority has significant political change – do reach out if you would like to discuss.

That’s all for now.

Paul