As part of our support for Local Authorities producing and using design codes we host a free online network for local authority practitioners. The aim of the group is to develop local capacity by bringing together people working on similar issues and challenges and sharing ideas and best practice.
The practitioners network is an online group hosted through Basecamp* and via fairly regular MS Teams meetings.
Any local authority practitioner with an interest in Design and Design Codes can join. We host remote meetings every 6-8 weeks and have an online forum where members can post questions, discuss issues and share resources and information. Access to the group will initial be limited to local authority officers only so we ask that you register with your local authority.gov.uk email address.
In practical terms, there the two basic elements to the network are:
An online platform for sharing information - You register on our online Basecamp system which will help keep you up to date and enable you to take part in on-line discussions/forums, etc about all things Design Code. This online space for local authority officers is to ask questions, post updates and share experience, as well as to help PAS develop how we can support authorities. Joining the Basecamp forum is totally voluntary and you can always drop out of it in the future.
We use Basecamp to give us a place away from our main website where we can discuss issues and ideas with LPAs without the pressure of having fully-formed answers and where we can develop ideas without setting hares running. As things become clearer we can push things into our main website for general consumption. Our main website will continue to publish existing help and advice and communicate PAS support activity.
Meetings and discussions via MS Teams – informal and held remotely, these meetings will be held regularly to share information and ask questions or find answers based around discussions that occur in the online forum or issues or activities that are occurring in the sector. These might include attendance by external speakers or bodies to the network as required. Recordings of these session will be posted in the Network Basecamp for non attendees to access.
If you wish to join this network, please fill out this Microsoft Form
* We in PAS have used Basecamp for years as our online collaboration space. It's a website and it sends you notifications so you might experience it as a series of emails. If you're interested there is a quick guide here https://basecamp.com/how-it-works. If we were to publish a set of 'rules' it would read something like: "Basecamp is where LPAs and PAS discuss and develop ideas - none of the content is official advice".