Local government trading companies - what you need to succeed. FT Ben Ticehurst.

Ben is a highly regarded local government executive director, management consultant, non-exec director and poacher/gamekeeper with almost 40 years public services experience. Throughout Ben’s substantive and consulting career he has a successful track record of managing, leading, and transforming services and commercial ventures across People, Place and Corporate Services, often in highly political and unionised environments. A bright, creative thinker, consultative and facilitative by nature, Ben is a solutions driven and outcome focussed completer-finisher. Ben’s commercial and technical expertise and acumen is underpinned by a mixed tool kit approach to change coupled with strong governance which Ben ultilises to horizon scan and mitigate risk. Ben’s innate ability to articulate viable, easy to understand solutions and outcomes to stakeholders ensures that officers, organisations, and members are brought on the transformation journey, business benefits are realised, and more robust, financially viable and sustainable public services are achieved, delivering better outcomes for all.Today we discussed, how that in some situations, a problem facing councils is that they have trading companies but realise they’re not as well equipped to manage them as they want to, or should be. Segments:How did this come about?What are typical problems?What are the things many councils didn’t know they needed to prepare for?What steps can councils take to overcome these challenges?