January 22nd 2008
The City Council Play
There has been a lot of comment in the local press recently about whether it was good value for money to spend £400,000 on a play.
It’s worth remembering that this play is actually about training Council staff. The Council is one of the largest employers in Nottingham, with tens of thousands of members of staff. Changing an organisation that big is really complex. This play is one way of communicating with lots of members of staff all at once, in the hope of improving the way the Council works, and improving the way the Council delivers services to local people.
If the play can reach thousands of members of Council staff, and if it starts off a real culture of change here, then the money will be well invested.
But those are big “ifs”!
I saw the play today - all councillors have been invited and many are planning on going. It was a really good opportunity to speak to council staff at various different levels, from the senior managers we see at committee meetings all the time, to the people who actually do the frontline work of the council. The play itself… was… interesting. The actors were good, and the props and staging were all competent. It was quite clever how they took words from interviews with people here and turned it into drama.
One really striking moment for me was a story about how a team of council staff went out for a Christmas meal in a local restaurant, and during the evening the names of organisations were read out. “Experian” - and everyone cheered. “Capital one” - and everyone cheered. “Boots!” - and everyone cheered. “Nottingham City Council” - and people booed!
I don’t want to be part of a Council that local people have such a poor opinion of, so I do support measures like this training event that have a chance to change Nottingham City Council into an organisation we can actually all be proud of.
