Solace in the South West
11 November 2014
Simon Baker
Solace Group Board Finance lead &
CEX Staffordshire Moorlands and High
Peak Councils

What is SOLACE?
 The professional body representing senior strategic managers in UK local authorities & other public sector organisations
 We focus on promoting excellent public service leaders
 We seek to influence debate around the future of public services ensuring policy and legislation is informed by the experience and expertise of our members.
 We operate as a ‘ profit for purpose’ organisation reinvesting profit from our commercial arm into the professional development of our members
 We aim to make Solace membership an essential part of a successful public senior career and be the ‘go to’ organisation for advice, opinion on issues of professional leadership and public service sector improvement

To provide excellent opportunities for our members to learn from the best, to share next practice and to network with each other and with leaders from other areas of public life
To contribute to and to influence the debate about the future of public services and to make sure that policy is informed by the experience and expertise of our members
To manage the Solace
Group effectively to ensure it remains relevant , effective and valuable to its members and partners

SOLACE – what we do
Good
Practice
Guides
Business
Partner
Relationships
Policy
Brief
Policy
Spokespeople
Policy
Networks
Stakeholder
Relationship
Blogs
Media &
Press relations
Policy-led
Events
MWB
MJ Lite
Marketing
Membership data
HoC
Reception
Event
Networks & communities management
Master
Classes
Research &
Comment
Annual
Summit
Leader
-ship events
Mentoring
Training courses
Case Studies
& Articles
Shadowing
Annual
Dinner
Branch
Events
Team working
Recruitment drives
Governance
Information management
Financial management
Policy & Influence
Learn, Share & Network
Relevant, Effective, Valuable

• Strengthening your society: new governance arrangements
• Solace Group: created from Society, Foundation &
Company
• Chair: Joanna Killian, Essex CC
• President: Mark Rogers, Birmingham City Council
• Solace Group Board and Policy Board
• 10 Policy and 10 Deputy Spokespeople
• Policy networks to encourage member engagement
• New management arrangements & staff structure
• Solace in Business, our wholly owned commercial arm

• Membership - ensuring you continue to get value for money
• Being relevant & focussed on things that matter to you as pubic sector leaders
• Be a strong voice standing up for and challenging the profession
• Tackling issues that are managerial rather than political
• Leadership & professional development- promoting ethical and value lead standards of leadership
• Strengthening the regional activity and engaging more of you in our work.

• 1200 members and growing
• 85% of all Chief Executives in Membership
• 650 Senior Manager members from all sectors
• Summit in Liverpool attended by over 300 delegates
• New governance arrangements has trebled the number of members directly engagement in our work

• Policy Spokespeople appointed by our members at
AGM
• Policy Board to set our policy priorities
• Policy Spokespeople to establish and lead networks of interested members
• Input from Regions on policy board and networks
• Support from Past services and graduate members
• Work in collaboration with other professional bodies

Community Well Being
Jo Farrar/Penny Thompson
Children & Families
Phil Norrey/Kim Bromley-Derry
Civil Resilience & Community
Safety
John Barradell/Stephen Baker
Elections & Democratic Renewal
Dave Smith/Jo Miller
Innovation and Commissioning
Max Wide/Sandy Hopkins
Digital Leadership
Martin Reeves/Robert Keynon
Leadership & Learning
Deborah Cadman/Becky Shaw
Local Government Finance &
Commercialism
Paul Martin/Mike Suarez
Economic Prosperity and
Housing
Martin Swales/Simon
Neilson/Manjeet Gill
Evidence Based Policy
Abdool Kara/Steve Atkinson

• Policy Spokespeople will be introducing themselves and asking for your views on priorities via MWB in the coming weeks
• Asking you to sign up to contribute to the networks
• State of the Nation survey launched to identify local pressures and the issues you want us to focus our policy resources on
• Policy Board meeting in January to set Business Plan
Priorities
• Actively seeking input from Regions on policy board and networks

• Skills for Leadership : Strengthening our professional development and learning offer across our members career journey
• Driving up standards: Developing a proposition for ethical based leadership and a Solace Standard
• Sector improvement: Working with other professional bodies as a
‘convenor of the professions’
• Strengthening links between the public and private sectors via our business partner programme
• Strong voice : Continue to comment on things that matter most to the profession
• Excellent Events : Providing interesting and timely opportunities for you to network with peers

• Keen to get your views on what Solace does well or could do differently in future?
• What more could we do to engage Solace members regionally?
• What are the core areas that Solace should be focussing its resources on?
• Do we keep you well enough informed? What more can we do to ensure you value your society?

• 4 th December 2014: Whitehall Dialogues & House of
Commons Reception
• 26 th February 2015: Solace Leadership Forum and
Annual Charity Dinner, Globe Theatre, London
• 1 July 2015: Solace at the LGA conference, Harrogate
• 7-9 October 2015 Solace Summit, Bournemouth
Information about all our other regional event information and master classes at www.solace.org.uk
Book at events@solace.org.uk

Graeme McDonald, Solace Group
Director
Graeme.Mcdonald@solace.org.uk
Debbie Wood, Solace Group
Director
Debbie.Wood@solace.org.uk
Terry McDougall, Group Director
Solace in Business
Terry.McDougall@solace.org.uk