Thursday, 19 October

Solace members are invited to join the AGM. 

Please note this event is for Solace members only.

In this morning's keynote session, we will be joined by John Amaechi OBE, an Organisational Psychologist whom will be delivering the session in the style of a fireside chat.

Keynote Chair Speaker: Matt Prosser, Solace President & Chief Executive at Dorset Council.

More information to come...

More information to come...

More information to come...

More information to come...

AMPlify in partnership with the LGA and E-Quality is Solace’s ambitious three-strand development programme that supports the development of diverse talent within local government leadership.

Launched at last year’s Solace Trailblazer Day, our AMPlify Talent community represents an incredible cross-section of local government professions and experiences. In this session they will invite you to reflect on how you can best foster trust and credibility in your organisations, and through an open conversation ask what more can be done to further embed the conditions for leaders to succeed across your entire workforce, but particularly those leaders from minoritised ethnic backgrounds.

Using leadership as the framework, we will ask how you can best grow the next generation of leadership giants of the future, and by disclosing the range of opportunities and challenges, equip you with the knowledge and insights you need to become an exceptional leader who can navigate challenges, inspire teams, and drive your organisations toward sustained success.

The most successful leaders include everyone in their plans, they are authentic and tell the truth.  This session will celebrate the journey and share the stories from the first flagship cohort of Solace’s AMPlify programme as well as encourage you to reimagine the impact of your leadership, ultimately asking who are you talking to… and who are you ignoring?

Speaker details coming soon...

Whilst the government aims for 300,000 charge points installed by 2030, only around 12% have been rolled out so far. Less than 35,000 public charge points can’t begin to meet the current and predicted demand of 11 million UK households that don’t have access to domestic charging. What is causing this standstill, and what can we practically do drive the much-needed change of pace?

Find out why the deployment of public charge points across the UK is stalling, and how the public and private sectors can get around their specific challenges to provide cleaner air and equitable access to sustainable transport. From building an EV charging strategy, to funding models, maintenance and future proofing – we will address the main blockers to sustainable transport and proven strategies to overcome them.

Inflation continues to remain at a stubbornly high level in the UK, with the largest upward contributing factor being the rising cost of food. This coupled with rising energy and fuel costs, and more recently the rise in interest rates and the knock on impact this has had on housing costs is pushing households across the country to the brink.

This session aims to bring together the innovators from the local government sector to explore the role of local authorities in mitigating the impacts of the current rise in cost of living, what approaches can be adopted to support residents through this period and what we can do to ensure they don’t fall into crisis in the future. We will explore what solutions have worked for residents over the past 18 months, what didn’t and will look at what future challenges the cost of living may hold for your residents as we approach the Winter months.

Representatives from St Helens Council will lead the session and will share lessons from their borough including how they targeted support to those most in need, how they moved quickly to respond and provide solutions to the ever changing crises facing residents, and how they worked with local partners and the voluntary sector to deliver this support.  In this interactive session, we are really keen to learn from other areas and discuss what our priority actions should be going into the winter months.

As ever, there are continuing drivers for change and transformation in local government: community need, grant funded programmes, budget pressures, demand and climate change. Now is a more important time than ever to reflect on how to do change well.

This session will present a range of examples, case studies and formal academic research from our Managing Director Lucy Trueman to explore:

• What does ‘good’ change look like?

• Why did no one pick up a PRINCE2 manual in the pandemic?

• How can local authorities build a culture that’s able to change?

• What is the impact of the pandemic in how local authorities are approaching change going forward.

The session will be interactive, where you will have the opportunity to access a free online change readiness tool, and ask questions from our panel of speakers. We will explore different examples of ways which local authorities are tackling their approach to change going forward, and what the key lessons from the pandemic are. Our MD will present key findings from her academic research project this year, which involved interviewing council CEOs on their approach to change.

This session will suit people who are looking to deliver change in their authority, whether digital, cultural or service re-design. Lucy and Darius will be joined by colleagues from the sector who will share their experience of driving change post pandemic, and their lessons learned.