[Jessica Crowe]

Hi all

A quick reminder to complete this quick survey if you get 5 minutes. It's only 2 pages long and a dozen questions, but will give us some very useful information to inform our lobbying of government around the proposals in the Localism Bill. As it stands the numbers of responses are not sufficient for us to be able to use the results with any statistical confidence.

Please follow the link here

As an example of why it is important to try and get your views, one of the questions asks how likely or unlikely various potential impacts of the Bill's proposals might be, including whether there might be fewer opportunities for councillors to challenge external partners. As it stands the Bill appears to allow committee system councils to maintain health, community safety and flooding scrutiny powers but not the wider scrutiny of other partners powers from the 2007 Act. If we knew what people thought about this it would help us make the case to government that these powers should be retained.

I know we have our Annual Survey out just now as well and that everyone is under a lot of pressure, but it will help us be more effective advocates and lobbyists and to promote the value of scrutiny on your behalf if you could invest 5 minutes in completing this very quick survey.

We plan now to use the results in our briefing for the Second Reading of the Bill so the final deadline for completion is Friday 7th January 2011. But don't leave it until then - click here to complete the survey now!

Thanks all

Jessica