Bespoke Facilitated Events

 Planning decisions can be controversial and very expensive if decisions are lost at appeal. Working with your planning team, we can facilitate a workshop that ensures that all councillors understand how to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks.

Our workshop session, usually 4 hours and in person, takes councillors on a journey from local plan site allocations, through pre-application discussions with developers, community engagement and defensible decisions decisions at committee.

We adapt what is needed through discussions with the planning team, researching your council's position and past decisions and appetite for development of councillors. 

Delivered by 2 trainers who have decades of experience in planning. It can be expanded and split into two sessions, one for all councillors and one for planning committee members. 

Action on climate change cannot be delivered  without a whole council approach. It needs to be central to all internal & external decision making and involve all levels of officers & councillors.

Our workshop is delivered by both an experienced councillor and a carbon literacy trainer. We will look at what your council wants to achieve, how it is currently performing and the action plan to get there. Then we'll work with your top political and managerial teams to consider what other councils do and how to embed climate action in a way that suits your council.

We can do this in one full day, or we can deliver over two half days, to allow time between for consideration and bringing others on board the process. It can also culminate with an all-staff/all-councillor briefing, with facilitated Q&A of top team, to truly embed climate action at every level and in every service area.

The top political and managerial leadership teams need to be effective. Their different but complimentary roles need to knit together the whole organisation. You need to present a united front to staff, public and partners, but also demonstrate effective challenge.

This facilitation workshop takes a completely bespoke approach. It might be a 3 hour session for the top political team on building trust, chairing skills and confidence. Or a 2 hour online session for a political group on effective yet supportive challenge. Or a half day in person for officers and politicians working through a new council plan to ensure buy in from all sides. 

If needed we can provide psychometric profiling tools to aid understanding of individuals so that we can help build into a trusting functional team.

No council can do it all alone. Whilst partnerships are formed on a personal level and how to build relationships is a skill in itself, turning that into a strategic partnership programme that works for residents is vital.

Our full or half day facilitated sessions bring together council officers, councillors, other public sector organisations, voluntary sector and local businesses, to work effectively together. It might be to determine a new joint strategy or ensure current plans align or find new ways to serve local residents with a cost effective approach. 

Using external, objective facilitators enable all participants to feel equal in the process, valued for what they bring to the table and able to fully contribute. They are also skilled in handling characters that would dominate, potential conflicts and bringing in quieter voices.