Firstly, about our Senior DSO Programme

Masterclasses are part of ADSO’s new Senior DSO Programme, officially launching September 2025, and are designed to cover the range of topics and issues you may face as your career develops and you take on more responsibility.  Democratic Services varies hugely across the country and some of our members do not work in traditional local authority settings.  We have not, therefore, defined a target audience other than to say you will probably have at least 3 years’ experience in a DSO role and have the fundamentals of that role under your belt.  You may be taking on, or being given, more complex tasks and responsibilities and perhaps beginning to look around to see what might be next for you.

We will cover many topics, some driven by specific tasks or roles you might face as you become more senior (masterclasses).  Others will offer the opportunity to explore new, emerging or complex topics, where sharing views and exchanging ideas and experiences are important (seminars).  They will all be short sessions of 60-90 minutes, depending on the content, and led by a facilitator or expert.

To kick the series off we are offering the following masterclass on 3rd July at 2-3.30 pm

Proportionality and Committee Places

An essential and quite technical area of governance law. It is vital to get this right, as decisions made by committees with incorrect calculations of political group sizes can be challenged in the courts, especially when the sizes of political groups change after elections/by-elections. This masterclass will be run by DSOs from Barnet Council who ran a similar session at the ADSO conference in 2024.

This session will cover the law on proportionality and committee places; how to do the calculations; how to deal with political groups of the same size; what to do in no overall control councils; and how to treat independent or non-grouped Councillors.

Places are limited to up to 15 people.

Date and time

Thursday 3rd July 2025, 2.00 -3.30 pm

Cost

£100.00+ VAT per person

How to book a place

Please book a place using the link below.  The terms and conditions of booking can be found here.

Please note that ADSO will now only be using their Membership bank account.  The details are below:

Account Number: 23545903
Sort Code: 20-02-25

Booking requirements

• A purchase order number is required for all bookings.  Please make the PO out to ADSO (see note above). Courses cannot be attended if a purchase order is not received.
• A hardcopy of the purchase order is required.
• A few days after booking you will receive a calendar invite for the workshop(s).  Please note that your email address will be visible to all participants unless you advise us otherwise.
• Please send the above information to adsotraining@emcouncils.gov.uk.