by Sally Slade (South Holland District Council portfolio holder for legal, performance and democratic services)
The other day, one of my children asked me, “Mummy, what do you actually do?”. It’s a question that I sometimes ask myself!
My portfolio is so broad, encompassing a variety of departments, that it makes my working life incredibly varied.
My official title is Portfolio Holder for Legal, Performance and Democratic Services. In essence this means that I am responsible for the people within South Holland District Council. So that includes officers and councillors, training and development, human resources and customer services, IT provision and maintenance, anything to do with elections and democracy, all the legal work and FOI requests etc. I could go on and on. I am never lacking in work to do and certainly never bored!
I have been a cabinet member and held this portfolio since shortly after the last election, and spent some time meeting all the personnel involved. This included an afternoon in customer services, where I observed at the cash desk, helped on reception, and sat in on a benefits consultation. This gave me an overview of the “customer-facing” work being done in the Priory Road offices.
I also met a group of young apprentices and ex-apprentice employees, which was illuminating.
Prior to taking on this portfolio I had not even known that we had so many apprentices. I am ashamed to admit that I thought they were only in the IT department.
And here were young men and women who were learning whilst working in finance, customer services, HR and more. They were all so enthusiastic about the process and about what they had learned so far, and, without exception, really keen to progress further in the future.
I will write more about various aspects of my responsibilities in future, particularly regarding how we measure performance here at SHDC, and the democratic processes involved in elections.
