Toolkit

Welcome to our toolkit for getting the most out of Modern Councillor.

The toolkit has been put together for those working with Elected Members and contains information, material and links designed to help encourage uptake and usage of Modern Councillor.

Please let us know your feedback, particularly what else you would like to see in this toolkit.  We look forward to hearing from you.

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A Haringey perspective on e-learning for Members

Setting the scene
The London Borough of Haringey in north London adjoins inner and outer London and has an east/west divide (the west is more affluent whereas the east of the borough is more deprived).  It has 7 area assembly areas, 19 wards and 57 Councillors.  Not only are these Councillors more ethnically diverse that usual (it has 30% BME councillors compared to a national average of 4%), but the average age of those councillors is 47, and over 40% are under the age of 40.  All of these Councillors have a range of skills and learning needs that are addressed by the council's Local Democracy and Member services team, headed up by Yuniea Semambo.

The team's approach to Member development is comprehensive and uses the IDeA's Charter for Member Development as a driver and framework.  Using the Charter in this way requires a strategic approach which, in turn, gives a clear and shared vision for Member development.  The whole programme is actually led by members via a cross party working group and has buy in across different directorates in the Council, crucially, with officers understanding members' roles.

An effective programme requires resourcing, and Haringey has secured dedicated officer support plus funding to run the programme.  Each Councillor has their own individual development plan which is created together between officer and councillor.  In this way, each plan is tailored to the individual's needs and the required support is identified.

IT support
Recognising that not everyone has the same level of IT knowledge and understanding, Haringey introduced dedicated IT support staff for councillors.  They hold weekly ‘surgeries' for Councillors to drop with an IT related query and, for those who need it, they will visit Councillors at home to solve problems.  In addition, all IT equipment is updated regularly to meet Member's needs.

Approach to e-learning
Haringey is committed to e-learning as a training delivery mechanism and it is a corporate priority for both officers and members alike.  The Member services team's approach is to use Modern Councillor as part of its e-learning package, using its very own Modern Councillor site as an online portal for Member's learning requirements. 

As such, the site features webcasts and podcasts of training, e-learning modules on various subjects, an online library of learning material, integration with the council's own existing online systems that support e-learning, a calendar of upcoming training events and an online discussion forum for Members only.

Tailoring Modern Councillor
Yuniea's team identified what they wanted from Modern Councillor and then sat down with Ben from Learning Pool to talk about how it could be delivered, and how the Modern Councillor site and content could be customised to requirements, for example by including branding and links relevant to Haringey's councillors. 

Once the team were happy with what was created they piloted it with a small group of Members and then evaluated their response to the content and presentation.  Various elements of navigation and content needed to be improved, which was passed to the Learning Pool team to complete. 

Modern Councillor was then rolled out to members and officers to use and a system was put in place for continuous evaluation and improvement, giving feedback for those all-important individual development plans.

The team are now happy that their Modern Councillor site has become a one-stop shop for all their Councillor's needs but they're not stopping there!  The vision is to move from e-learning to c-learning (collaborative) and to continue to develop course material that's relevant to Haringey's Councillors.  Increasingly the interactivity of the site, by including Member generated content, and personalising content is key.  The collaboration comes from developing e-learning with Members, not to them, thereby underlining Members continuing to take a lead role in their development.

What Haringey's Councillors think