Angela Holden, Electoral Services Manager

Hounslow Council

My Role:
I am the Electoral Services Manager at the London Borough of Hounslow. I manage a small team of staff that keeps the Electoral Register up to date with an electorate of 177,000 and manage all elections in the Borough. I am also a Deputy Returning Officer.

The Challenge, Why did you apply?
I applied for the Local Government Challenge because I can see that local government needs to change with the times, and I think that I can contribute to identifying the way forward. I am taking on a huge personal challenge, but I see this as an opportunity, perhaps to make a real difference!

What would you do with the £10,000 scholarship if you won?
I would look at the American City Manager model. Many messages from government are about closer collaboration between different parts of the public sector. In the USA the City Manager is an open political appointment for the life of the administration, and their role is to ensure that local services, including police and fire services are organised according to local needs. For example a town that hosts a chemical plant would have a fire brigade that was trained in the risks peculiar to a fire in a chemical plant. One of the areas that I would look at, as part of my project would be how to balance the arguments for benefits of strategic services covering, say several Council areas such as regional government against the specific benefits of local influence. Including the ways and means by which residents are involved as part of discussions and influence final decisions. I would also look at whether a strategic organisation does in fact provide the economies of scale suggested and save money through reduction in duplication.