Coming in November 2018: TOWN HALL

Stories about buildings, people and power

Town halls, council houses and civic centres are the most visible symbol of local democracy in our towns and cities. Whether they’re grand Victorian edifices or brash 70s redbrick blocks, they occupy a unique position in the fabric of a place. This book explores these buildings and their past, present and possible futures – told by the people who work in them, care about them or understand the importance of significant buildings in towns and cities.

We want to change the way people see local government and public services through compelling stories told in creative ways. In this book we’re focusing on our civic buildings because their role, history and the work that goes on inside them make for fascinating tales that aren’t told widely enough.

Local government, stuck in the grip of dominant negative narratives, often finds it difficult to get its case across. The complexities of local government leave people cold and our civic buildings become, to some, simply symbols of a bureaucracy that doesn’t work. And yet many important stories about local government happen inside these amazing, beautiful, ugly, impractical and sometimes contested buildings that are the civic heart of a place.

In tough times it’s tempting to batten down the hatches, keep our heads down and hope that no-one takes yet another shot at us. But these stories about our civic places and spaces show that it’s when we’re bold, brave and daring in local government we’re at our best. That’s when we design our most breath-taking buildings, when we create spaces that work for communities as well as politicians, when we make bold statements about the places we serve. And that’s when people appreciate best how necessary our town halls are to our histories and our futures.

We need residents to be engaged with their town hall, keep an eye on it and what goes on in it. We want them to see it for what it is, appreciate and connect with it and all it stands for. That’s a serious challenge.

Our chapters reflect the big themes that emerged from our contributors’ town hall tales.

In Purpose stories focus on the role of town halls in transforming society, examining the buildings that make statements of intent about their place, as the focal point for discussions and decisions about the vision and ambitions of the people who live and work there. We celebrate municipal reformers and recognise those living the values and ideals of community and service - officers who understand that making a difference must be concrete. It must have an impact.

People celebrates and highlights the connections a town hall has with its place; what makes it unique, how a town or city’s people react to the physical presence of a civic building and that deep emotional connection so many of us have with our town hall that – most of the time – we don’t even realise we have.

Power takes us to the political heart of our town halls and the decisions made there, looking at the connections between a place and its people and how, sometimes, these can be broken.

In Future our storytellers explore the town halls that feel like they’re working today, explore the challenges some of them are facing and speculate on how they could work in the future.

All these stories are united by a common thread. They all show the distinctiveness and beauty, the guts and the occasional glory. There are so many more stories to tell.

This is where local democracy lives.

Town Hall will be published in November 2018.

Walk Tall – new book launched!

Walk Tall: Being a 21st Century Public Servant was launched in Birmingham on Friday. It’s a great creative step for me and our fourth Shared Press book. We’re really chuffed. Over the last 4 months I’ve been working with Fran Collingham and Lisa Hughes – on this fantastic commission for the Local Government Association, SOLACE – the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the PPMA (the HR and OD people managers association for the public sector). We’ve also commissioned photography for the first time from Maurice Keogh, and worked again with designer Kate Ferrucci.

Download the ebook for free at the Local Government Association Website:

Our challenge was to write and facilitate compelling stories that illustrate the experience of being a 21st century public servant and that inspire people working in or with the public sector to develop the characteristics of this new breed. The stories are a positive reminder that, in the post-Brexit world, that the sector employs people who are already creating original solutions to complex issues. Their deeply held values, positivity, flexibility, progressive attitudes and fresh thinking jump off the page. The book illustrates why I’m proud of public service in the UK and why I continue to support and write about it.

Each chapter of the book focuses on one of the characteristics identified in the research on the 21st century public servant carried out by Birmingham University. Each story brings a characteristic to life, shining a light on what it means in practice, in real workplaces across the country. The contents are an intriguing mix of personal narratives, profiles, opinions and short fiction. We wanted to reflect the diversity of what is happening across the sector and invited as many storytellers as we could into print, encouraging people to write their own stories.

The book includes a reflective piece by Sue Hawkins, a psychologist in the Youth Offending team at Stockport Council, on fostering a shared humanity with the young people she works with; a gritty and immensely practical frontline view from Lindsay Saunders and Heather Brown, local government Key Workers based in a police station in Wigan, focusing on their relationship with their locality; and Ian Lloyd, Transformation Manager for the Isle of Wight Council, on how communicating change to citizens is central to his creative thinking in response to austerity. There is also a sideways take on pan-public sector leadership by Mark Rogers, Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council. In times of upheaval it can be tempting to fall back on traditional, hero-style leadership, but these stories show how collaborative and distributed leadership can make a significant difference.

Although we know the book doesn’t scratch the surface in terms of the range and depth of the contributions public servants make, we are delighted that 65 people from 25 organisations have taken part including colleagues in local government, the NHS and the Fire and Rescue Service, as well as – in today’s mixed economy of service provision – public servants working in voluntary and private sector providers. Serving communities and improving people’s lives is a driving force and clear motivator for all our contributors, and public service is at the heart of every story.

As the leader of the team that curated the book (and a former corporate director in local government), it’s been a creative and inspiring experience. In the same spirit, we hope that everyone who reads it will use the book creatively and – importantly – will pass it on to colleagues. We believe that by changing the story, you change the workforce, the organisation and the sector. This storybook is bold and the people in it are fantastic. They are the ones who will stitch the post-Brexit world together.

We asked all our contributors to take selfies of their shoes in keeping with the theme. There’s a fab guide dog in it too!

Making our mark – book launch!

The book will be launched on the 22nd May at the Greenwich Literary Festival!

How do you want to make your mark in the world of work? It’s the question at the heart of a new creative project I’ve been working on with the University of Greenwich, designed to explore student stories of work, their experiences and expectations. It’s a tricky question at any stage of your career – and I have to admit that when I started my working life I didn’t really have a clue – but the project has been a joy to work on. And I love the idea of making your mark as a theme because it’s so open, forward looking and can be answered in different ways. It invites speculation, gives space and opportunity to stretch your imagination, dream a bit.

The student experience is a serious issue for many universities and Greenwich were keen to hear how students felt. Rather than using traditional questionnaires, they commissioned us to facilitate the students to tell their own stories in different creative ways – either writing fiction or via creative conversations, or illustrating their ideas and talents through images or designs they’ve created. The book is beautiful, but also unlike any I’ve been involved in before.

We love facilitating people to write but this time we had to be innovative about the process and introduce new ways to tap into different types of creativity – particularly for those that are story-tellers not writers, for those who express themselves visually, and for those that think in 3d (and the one student who dreamed of a future in 5d!)  We found the most important thing was making a connection, individually and personally with the participants, understanding their thinking, preferences, talents and supporting them into a new place, the future they want.

So, the stories and conversations are rich, engaging and honest in a way that no case study could ever be. And the story structure adds meaning and clarifies where the real rub is terms of getting started in a career. Aspiration and anxiety jump off the pages in equal measures. The stories are as much about making a mark in terms of being a valued person and supporting the greater good, as they are about becoming world renowned.

The students themselves confound any stereotypes that are in the mainstream. Most of them are juggling work in non-graduate jobs, hard-working and focused (which sort of reflects the self-selecting nature of the project) and there are contributions from maths, computing, English, graphics, 3d design, animation, business information systems.  The University are delighted and have gained some useful insights into how they can enhance their support for students in their work journey.

Let me know if you are interested in coming and I’m keen to hear how you’ll make your mark? I’ve made some definite marks in recent years – writing a thriller and curating a book of fiction, and as a result of this project, also some tentative marks in charcoal and paint. I’ve been inspired by the students and it’s made me think about what I want to do for the next ten years, a compelling question isn’t it.