Putting heads together to deliver healthy places

摘要

On a frosty January morning at Banbury train station, 10 of the best and brightest local government officers gathered around as Local Government Association (LGA) project manager Ami Beeton highlighted to them what was to come over the next six months, including some inevitable late nights and hard work ahead. It became clear to all that the LG Challenge 2019 had officially begun. Temperatures finally began to rise in the council chamber at Cherwell DC, the host for the first round of this year's challenge, as chief executive officer Yvonne Rees gave a warm and exuberant welcome to the contestants and introduced the task: 'How can public services work together more effectively to deliver healthy places across Oxfordshire?' The contestants had just 24 hours to develop an action plan to identify how the county could ensure buy-in from different stakeholder groups to deliver healthy places and how they would need to work differently with their partners to deliver it -no easy feat. Splitting into two teams, they hurried to their respective rooms for their first bout of team time and each selected their captains - Rob Comber (Kent CC) for Team Ignite and Hollie Stone (Barking and Dagenham LBC) for Team Thrive.