A caring, sharing career.

Building your Community - local councils build, develop, manage and own a wide range of buildings from housing and residential homes to schools and public buildings.

Careers and opportunities exist to oversee and regulate construction and developments and also in design, developments and maintenance.

Caring for your Community - looking after those who are socially excluded, taking care of elderly people, caring for children and young people, supporting those with disabilities and other vulnerable groups within society - local councils take on all these responsibilities.

They require friendly, caring and highly skilled staff to manage these services and deliver them on the front-line.

Educating your Community - local councils are responsible for the smooth running of schools, libraries and information centres. Not only do they employ teachers and other school support staff, but also a range of advisers and administrators.

Opportunities also include catering, caretaking and cleaning staff, and classroom assistants and technicians.

Entertaining your Community - Councils provide a range of leisure and recreational services. They manage leisure centres, museums, art galleries and tourist attractions.

Protecting your Community - Councils provide a range of services to keep you safe and protect you and your local environment. From Emergency Planning arrangements in case of disaster, to environmental conservation, pollution control, consumer advice, enforcement of hygiene standards in public places.

Supporting your Environment - Councils will require a number of support functions to hold their organisations together. These functions are vital to the smooth running of the organisation. From administrators and ICT technicians, to marketing officers, and solicitors, there is a whole range of staff employed.

For more information on a career in local government visit www.LGcareers.com or www.WLGA.gov and look at the employment pages or visit your local councils' website.

WE all make good promises to ourselves at this time of year, in the form of new year resolutions. Good well-intentioned promises to do better and maybe give a little something that will make us feel better.

Whilst in many cases this will be a visit to the gym, how about that feel-good factor of giving something back to the community in which we live. For many workers in local government they can experience this through their important everyday work that supports the local community.

Opportunities to give something back to your community are plentiful in local government.