West Midlands

Chair - Allison Davies
Tel: 01789 260704
Email: allison.davies@stratford-dc.gov.uk

Secretary - Joanne Evans
Tel: 01384 812117
Email: jo.evans@dudley.gov.uk

PPMA in the West Midlands region continues to increase its membership from local authorities within the region, with many now choosing to take advantage of the corporate membership within PPMA. This is starting to make a real difference and is seen as being a real benefit particularly to the larger authorities. Attendance at meetings is increasing and this has been helped by encouraging speakers who are recognised key leaders to make presentations on different areas of Human Resource management.

A regional meeting took place on the 11 September, where several presentations/topics were made and discussed. These included an excellent presentation from Birmingham City Council who talked about their experiences going through their change programme and the initiatives put in place to maintain employee engagement. The BEST Programme has been shown to be very successful and has been well received by Trade Unions. Interesting spin offs from the initiative have included a “Dragon’s Den” suggestion scheme.

Worcestershire County Council presented on the success of their Apprenticeship Scheme and talked about the journey they had undertaken to secure apprenticeships, aiming for the national target of 31 per year. The presentation highlighted the benefits of getting the planning in these schemes right and the potential minefield in navigating legislation in this area. The presentation generated debate on the different approaches that had been taken by authorities across the region.

The region has been approached by the MJ to see whether W. Midlands regional members could produce an article for the magazine, so the meeting considered the viability of this. North Warwickshire having produced such an article was given the go ahead to use this opportunity as a starting point for promotion of PPMA in the region. It is hoped that further ideas and articles will come forward in due course.

A planning meeting has taken place to establish a programme of meetings and agendas for 2010. An approach has been taken to try and ensure that each meeting consists of a mix of national and local speakers reflecting hot topics in the public sector at the present time. Due to financial constraints facing local authorities, it has been agreed that the region needs to maximise sponsorship for these meetings to encourage attendance and support ongoing regional running costs.

It is hoped that the Christmas meeting in December 2009 will again be a well attended event with a presentation from a national Policy Board speaker, the details of which are currently being arranged. This will then be followed by the annual regional Christmas meal and networking, and will be an excellent opportunity to welcome and get to know all the new regional members to the Association.


Allison Davies
Regional Chair- West Midlands PPMA

December 2009