Thank you

Hello,

We’ll start this week with a really big thank you – to everyone who supported us as we cycled the length and breadth of Wiltshire last week.

It was some ride – 130-odd miles – but it was a beautiful day and it’s fair to say we enjoyed it. Most of it, anyway!

The ride was a real team achievement and we are so pleased that together we raised more than £3,000 for Wiltshire Mind, which is a great cause.

Thanks to everyone who donated to our Just Giving page, and to our support team on the day, who made everything run so smoothly.

We’d particularly like to thank the #EPIC team, who set themselves the challenge of engaging staff to beat our 130 miles…which they did quite comfortably with around 725 miles ridden on exercise bikes in Trowbridge, Chippenham and Salisbury – a fantastic achievement which helped raise £315 towards our total.

Thanks also go to all the riders who took part and especially Steve Manning, who had the original idea for the ride and turned it into reality. And, knowing Steve, he is already mapping out an even tougher challenge for next year…

While we’re talking about #EPIC, well done to the team who were finalists at yesterday’s HR Excellence Awards. Terence joined them for the awards ceremony, where our staff engagement work was nominated in two categories - most innovative deployment of HR technology, and outstanding employee engagement strategy.

This is a brilliant achievement from what is, let’s not forget, a relatively new team which has already achieved so much and deserves recognition – and no doubt there’ll be lots more achieved in the near future.

On the subject of recognition there is still time to get your nominations in for individuals or teams who you think have gone above and beyond and deserve an Achieving Excellence award. Please make your nomination here by the end of the week.

You’ll no doubt be aware of the media coverage of the visit of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall to Salisbury last week.

More than 5,000 people were at the Market Square to see Their Royal Highnesses and they took time to meet the traders and businesses that were directed affected in The Maltings and all those who have been involved in the incident – either as a first responder, or as part of the recovery programme. The city is starting to get back to normal and the Royal visit was a huge boost attracting so many visitors. This weekend (30 June) the winning bid to host next year’s National Armed Forces Day will be announced. If ever there was a time and place for recognising the role of the military – it surely has to be Salisbury that’s chosen – fingers crossed!

Looking ahead to next week, Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting has a really busy agenda. While the headlines from the meeting will no doubt focus on housing (with a big attendance expected for the item on the site allocations plan), the agenda touches on so many parts of our work – including gypsy and travellers, adult social care, governance, social workers, adoption, and an update on our overall performance which affects all areas.

We’ll update on that, and more, next week.

Finally, thanks to all of you for your patience during the hot weather – we’re aware that working conditions are quite uncomfortable for many, particularly at County Hall, and we would urge you to ensure you read the latest advice to help you stay as comfortable as possible. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

The Bustard Ride is nearly upon us

Hello,

Well the day has almost arrived, as tomorrow – the longest day – we will be setting off bright and early for the 130 mile Bustard Ride around Wiltshire.

We’re as prepared as we can be for what promises to be a challenging but great day – if a somewhat exhausting one!

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored us in raising money for the mental health charity Wiltshire MIND. If you haven’t sponsored us yet, please do so by visiting our Just Giving Page

We’re really grateful for the support we’ve been shown by so many of you – so far around £1,800 has been pledged – and not just with sponsorship, but also by those taking part either in the ride itself or  providing support along the route. In addition the #EPIC team have set you all a challenge to beat our 130 miles by riding exercise bikes that will be set up in County Hall, Monkton Park and Churchfields so please take an opportunity to support this…and if you fancy it, you can hop on one of the bikes too. We wish them and you the best of luck.

We’ll let you know how we get on and we have chosen the longest day to allow time and light if we need it! You can follow our progress on twitter – follow @wiltscouncil – or on our website.

Tomorrow is also the summer Solstice and many staff are involved in supporting this major event which attracts thousands of visitors.

Talking of major events this week ends with what promises to be amazing memorable day in Salisbury with the visit of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall to the city to supports its recovery.

They’ll be meeting members of the public and local businesses before a special reception at the Guildhall to meet first responders and all those who have been involved in the city’s recovery programme.

The recovery took another step forward this week with the handing back of Amesbury ambulance station, the third site to be handed back, following The Maltings shopping centre and Salisbury ambulance station. Salisbury is returning to normal and visitor numbers are slowly picking up.

Later on Friday, the Families and Children’s Transformation Programme Board meets in Devizes - FACT is a real multi-agency programme, which is now into its second phase with a focus on:

• No Wrong Door – an integrated multi-disciplinary service for young people aged 12 – 25 who are either in care or on the edge of care
• The development of a joint systems leadership approach
• Bringing multiple case management systems into one system to ensure all information is shared in one place.There will be more on the outcomes from this meeting in next week’s column, and we’ll continue to keep you updated on this important programme as it grows and develops.

Carlton spent the day with senior managers from adult social care and public health on Tuesday. The away day was a great opportunity for the team to discuss their priorities, values, what great management and leadership look like, and the exciting transformation journey that lies ahead. Thanks to everyone who took part, and for the superb support from the HR&OD team.

Finally, you may be aware that all our special schools for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are now at full capacity and at least 220 new special school places will be required by 2026. In the north of Wiltshire 70 additional places for children with complex needs will be required. Several options will be explored to assess how this provision for pupils with special needs in the future can be met. We are consulting on the options to help decide the future investment in special educational needs schools.

Please do respond yourself, if you would like to, and please do share with friends and family before 31 July. You can find the consultation here.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Bustard Ride, community recovery and Cabinet updates

Hello,

We’d like to start with a thank you to all of you so far who have donated to our Bustard Ride, which takes place next Thursday in aid of mental health charity Wiltshire MIND. So far we have raised around £1,000 and we would like to extend a huge thank you for your kind donations which act as a real incentive for us to complete this challenge!

If you haven’t seen the full list of staff taking part please visit our donations page – if you haven’t made a donation yet, we’d really appreciate it if you could support us and your colleagues. We’re all cycling a long way for a really great cause and we would be grateful for as much support as possible. Thank you. Our #EPIC team will also be involved on the day with exercise bikes at County Hall, Monkton Park, and Churchfields.

As you’ll have heard, Tuesday 12 June marked 100 days since the attack in Salisbury and Cabinet held its meeting in the city. It was also announced that The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting Salisbury next Friday (22 June) as part of the city’s recovery. Along with meeting members of the public and local businesses, Their Royal Highnesses will join a reception in the Guildhall to meet those who were the first responders at the incident and those who are helping deliver the recovery work to help the city get back to normal. It promises to be a really special day for Salisbury, helping to boost its profile, the local economy and restore confidence in this beautiful city that it is a great place to visit.

Cabinet discussed and approved a £9m spend on our digital programme, and as part of this we are working with Microsoft on a body of work that will ultimately improve the whole experience for customers. This means that all of us will need to work differently in the future and we’ll update more on what this will mean in future columns.

Cabinet also discussed an investment of £4m in housing to go some way towards meeting demand. It also discussed keeping the outdoor education centres at Oxenwood and Braeside open until the end of the year to allow time for proposals for future use of the buildings to be considered. The end of year budget position was also discussed and as a result of effective financial management we not only delivered a balanced budget in 2017/18, but also an underspend of £410,000.

Yesterday we held our regular forum with managers and heads of service and most of the meeting focused on ‘creating an EPIC workforce’. We always say that staff are our most important asset and we want to make sure that everyone is really engaged. There is clear evidence that the most engaged service areas are those that regularly report EPIC impressions and that complete the most e-learning, have the lowest sickness absences, highest take up of apprenticeships, and leadership and management courses. It was a good discussion, and there’s a lot for managers to think about, action, and discuss with all of you.

The positive work to further integrate partner agencies within our Support and Safeguarding Teams continues, with an Outreach Worker from Wiltshire Substance Misuse being aligned to the teams being confirmed this week. This builds on the Domestic Abuse Family Support Workers who have been within teams since April this year.  

Earlier this week we, along with a number of partners, took part in a Care Quality Commission Summit to discuss the recent targeted review of the local health and social care system, which was carried out earlier this year and published yesterday.

The review was commissioned because there are issues with how effectively the system works as a whole. The final report recognises the hard work and effort already being done by all staff and partners to improve the care and support for Wiltshire residents, and provides useful insight into the areas where we need to do more.

Some of the highlights include people who need care and support being kept safe, staff being recognised for their commitment and caring approach, and praise for our adult social care transformation. As always, what we really want to focus on in is the areas for improvement and we have already produced a detailed action plan to implement a single overarching strategy to address the following areas:

1. New Wiltshire health and social care model
2. A single overarching health and social care strategy, improving outcomes with a focus on prevention and early intervention
3. Strengthening joint commissioning across the whole system
4. Improving Wiltshire’s Health and Wellbeing Board effectiveness
5. Unifying and developing whole system governance arrangements
6. Developing a sustainable integrated workforce strategy
7. Implementing digital opportunities and information sharing across the system
8. Developing a single, integrated communications strategy

We’ll be talking about this a lot more over the next few weeks and months as this important programme of work develops. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Bustard Ride

Hello,

Two cycle rides of a quite different type this week…

Firstly, a huge thank you to the team who pulled together and delivered last week’s amazing OVO Energy Tour Series cycle race in Salisbury, which was held as part of the recovery programme.

From start to finish the event was absolutely brilliant and particular thanks go to those staff who volunteered to work as marshalls and ensure the 8,000 or so people who lined the streets to watch the race were able to safely enjoy the event. 

If you didn’t manage to catch it, the race was shown on ITV4 and is available to watch here. As it is being broadcast in 100 countries, it showed to a worldwide audience what a great city Salisbury is and how it is getting back to normal.

We’re under no illusions that the second ride will draw slightly smaller crowds…our very own Tour de Wiltshire rolls off the starting line at County Hall on 21 June as we set off on a 130-mile bike ride around the county to raise money for the mental health charity, Wiltshire MIND.

The idea for the marathon cycle emerged from last year’s staff engagement forums after all three of us made the mistake of admitting that we are keen cyclists.

Quite a few of you challenged us to turn our passion for pedalling towards a useful purpose – and the Bustard Ride was born.

Our thanks go to Steve Manning, from the environmental health team, who came up with the idea and has put a considerable amount of his own time in to planning the ride.

From Trowbridge, we will cycle a scenic anti-clockwise route around all of our community areas, taking in Warminster, Salisbury, Amesbury, Marlborough, Devizes, Malmesbury, Chippenham and Melksham, before arriving back at the start.

We’ve all taken the day off to complete the challenge and we’ll be joined on the adventure by Chief Constable Kier Pritchard from Wiltshire Police and other colleagues in the organisation and our EPIC staff engagement group will also be supporting us – more details on their involvement will follow in our next update.

Kier’s presence will at least ensure we aren’t tempted to break any speed limits along the way!
Rather than setting any records, our focus is on completing what will be a gruelling nine or ten hour challenge. So it’s no coincidence we’ve picked the longest day of the year to do it!

Wiltshire MIND does an amazing job in campaigning to ensure that everyone experiencing a mental health problem can get the support and respect they deserve. It’s an organisation that is very close to all our hearts, and they need every penny they can get to continue their priceless work.

We’re keen to raise as much money as possible – if you’d like to support us, our JustGiving page can be found at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bustard-ride-wiltshire

Alistair, Carlton and Terence