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Christmas message from the chair

Dear All 

As 2013 draws to a close it is again time to reflect on what the LRSA has achieved over the past 12 months.

We now have 89 local authority subscribing members, another increase over the previous year, and I believe we are now in a strong financial position. This firm financial footing enables us to provide more services and better value for money for our members. I want to take this opportunity to thank sincerely all those local authorities that have been with us from the start and also offer a very warm welcome to those that have joined us this year. Your contributions underpin the organisation’s financial stability and enable us to plan effectively for the coming year. I would obviously like to see more local authorities joining us as the more members we have the cheaper the subscriptions can become and the more we can contribute to effective support services for local registration services and I look forward to reaching the milestone of 100 members in 2014.

We have once again had a successful year in delivering high quality conferences and training events. The Year Ahead Conference held in Birmingham in May was a great success and we have already booked the Holiday Inn for the 2014 event on 23rd April. We also ran another Coroners Conference on 13th November and this was very popular and well received by all the delegates. The feedback we received was extremely positive and we will build upon this success with other similar events in the future. We have continued to provide NCS training in partnership with United Kingdom Visas and Immigration (UKVI) and thanks once again to Mick Cain for his commitment and enthusiasm. We also started delivering SCS training this year and thanks also to David Woosey and Michaela Harrison for sharing their expertise with candidates. The coming year is likely to be crucial for the future of our partnership working arrangements with the UKVI and you can be assured that we will be working very hard to ensure that local government is at the heart of Home Office front of house service delivery.

Our continued involvement in the development of a professional qualification for registration officers has been very exciting. We funded the training of the assessors for the qualification and the pilot was successfully launched in April this year. Candidates are working very hard to achieve the required standard and we are hopeful that some candidates will have completed their portfolio of evidence by March/April 2014. The Project Board will then take some time to evaluate the results of the pilot along with the extensive and valuable feedback received from the assessors and candidates. We are very hopeful that the national roll out of the qualification will take place in September 2014 and I want to take this opportunity to praise the dedication and hard work of the members of the Project Board.  The work that has gone into producing the modules, developing e learning materials, producing evaluation materials and ensuring that everything is running for the pilot has been absolutely phenomenal. The LRSA are now negotiating with the Project Board to work out exactly how they will be involved in the future management of the qualification following the national rollout and we still expect that LRSA member authorities will benefit from a subsidy for at least one candidate per year.

Please continue to be actively involved in your professional organisation and I would urge officers from subscribing local authorities to contribute to the forum and join in to spread good ideas, advice and best practice. If anyone is having difficulty logging in to the website please contact Angela or Stevie at TSI and I know they will be happy to help.

In conclusion, I look forward to your continuing support and I wish you a very happy Christmas and a successful and exciting 2014.

Very best wishes

Mark Rimmer
Chair of LRSA