Rob Huntington – assistant chief executive.robhuntington@sthelens.gov.uk Traditional and resistant to change was how the Local Government Association summed up St Helens MBC following a peer challenge in 2019. Although tentative steps had been taken to develop a modern and efficient council fit for the next decade, it would take a climactic event like Covid- 19 and a new leadership team to start the wholescale transformation currently happening. I joined the council as the new chief executive in early March 2020, just two weeks before national lockdown. When lockdown hit, what had been a very traditional office-based approach to work went out of the window overnight, and the majority of our workforce were forced into a new way of working, completely from home. Work very quickly became something you did, not somewhere you went. And while most staff embraced the obvious benefits working from home brought, for some it led to feelings of isolation and wellbeing issues.