Monday, 18 June 2007

I began the day meeting with a Watford Borough Council officer about a proposed change in the way the Council will assess discretionary rates relief for charities. In the past, this has been done entirely separately from decisions on grant-giving. They now propose to improve the exchange of information between different departments and want to know if they need to consult on this under Compact arrangements. I receive assurances that the criteria for relief I wont change and the method of calculation wont change, and so advice that I can’t see that any consultation is necessary. We agree that I will flag up the proposal at next week’s meeting on accommodation issues.

Otherwise, Vanessa and I talked about the training needs assessment, I worked with Maria on finalising some press releases, reviewed minutes of recent HIC and Compact meetings, and tried to clear the decks as I will spend the best part of the rest of the week working form home on our second stage BASIS application.