Last week JLGC attended the Local Government Association Conference and Exhibition 2010 in Bournemouth. Held at the Bournemouth International Centre, the conference consisted of three days of meetings and workshops covering a variety of issues, not least the current economic climate and the budget cuts announced last month. There was also a large exhibition made up of businesses, public sector groups, charities and everything in between relating to local government.
JLGC had a stand in the exhibition and also sent along staff to attend the conference sessions. Visitors to our stand had travelled from a variety of locations across the UK in order to come to the conference, including visitors from Lewisham, Nuneaton, Barnsley, and Surrey to name a few! We would like to thank everyone who came to talk to us, either out of curiosity or interest, and we were thrilled to find that not only was there new interest in our work but also that there were former Study Tour participants and former JETs in attendance who came to say hello.
JLGC took along three Japanese case studies to introduce to those in attendance at the conference: Citizens Participatory Budgets, Regional Development Associations and Place-Branding. While citizens participatory budgets seemed to be the most popular case study, there was no shortage of discussion on a wide range of issues outside of the case studies we brought along. Issues such as caring for the elderly and public sector cuts in Japan and the UK were also topics that were discussed with visitors to the JLGC stand.
Some also asked about the structure of Japanese local government, and for those who are curious our website has an archive of PDF files explaining local government in Japan.
Thank you once again for everyone who came to see us on stand F2, we enjoyed talking to everyone who visited us and hope to see you again next year.
