Over the next two days, PAs from councils all over Britain will attend a conference in Leeds to discuss the issues involved in working in local government.
According to expert speaker Pascoe Sawyers, one challenge is that it is essentially a political environment in which you may not even be sure who your bosses are.
“There can be conflict in a local authority about who is leading it — the officers or elected members,” he says. “The councillors are elected to take control, but there may be occasions when the chief executive is the leader. If it’s a new administration, that might be necessary, but it’s not ideal.
“Ultimately, councillors have the responsibility. But this can be confusing for staff. They may have been administering policies for years — then, overnight, an election changes the councillors, the policies and the whole working environment.
“It’s also important to understand some of the policy and priority issues. For example, if you are PA to the leader of the council and an angry resident rings up, that call is probably more important than one from a company director.”
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Pascoe is director of the Leadership Academy of the Improvement and Development Agency, a body that aims to help local authorities to operate better, and a big supporter of local authority PAs: “They control diaries and access, and their role is not to be underrated in work that is ever-changing and complex.”
Lindsey Grant, executive assistant to Bala Mahendran, chief executive of Basildon council in Essex, is also speaking at the conference. She recently ran a team-building event for staff in which 20 teams of six people ran a “pretend” council. “It was great fun and helped newer recruits to understand how the real thing operates,” she says.
She would like councillors to have a better grasp of what PAs can do: “We can, for example, offer our organisational skills and put on events in the community.
“The main political friction we have here is not between councillors and officers, but arises because Basildon is Conservative while central government is Labour. But regardless of the politics, as staff we feel that we are here to promote the council and enhance its reputation.”
The Top PAs and Secretaries Annual Conference is at the De Vere Oulton Hall Hotel, Leeds, tomorrow and Friday. www.lgc-topsecretaries.co.uk