Significant moment for Wiltshire's health and life sciences industries

New Science Park opens 

Last week was significant for Wiltshire’s health and life sciences industries when Porton Science Park, near Salisbury, officially opened.

We spoke recently about the advantages of hosting a leading global company like Dyson on our doorstep. Similarly, this science park strengthens our status as a place for innovation and high-level skills and jobs.

It’s a very impressive enterprise, and we are proud that working with the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the European Regional Development Fund we helped to secure the funding needed.

Salisbury and Amesbury are getting back to normal

Last week the final site in Salisbury city centre, Zizzi restaurant, was handed back to its owners following a thorough clean up. Working with the owners of all the affected sites in both the town centres we aim to have them open in time for Christmas.

To support the lead up to the Christmas trading period free parking after 3.00pm will be implemented in all our council car parks in Salisbury and Amesbury from next Monday 1 October until Christmas. The five park and ride sites will continue to be free parking all day from Monday to Saturday.

Textbook example of a good campaign 

We released some fantastic stats this week.  

An incredible 9,398 children in the county took part in the Beano-themed Summer Reading Challenge. Between them, they read more than 37,000 books!

Well done to the library team for a successful campaign, and thank you to the 250+ volunteers for their valuable support who help to make this challenge such a success.

EPIC effort in staff engagement 

We recently held our regular forum for senior managers.

It’s always a great opportunity to discuss important corporate matters, which can then be shared with all teams.

Last week’s forum focused on staff engagement, looking at how managers can motivate staff to engage. We know that staff that participate and feel engaged are more passionate and proud of where they work and consequently performance levels are higher.

On a similar note, this week our adult social care team began to run staff engagement sessions where Carlton and cabinet member Jerry Wickham meet staff.  The aim of these sessions is to acknowledge the immense amount of hard work that has taken place over the past year as part of a major transformation project within adult social care to deliver prevention, early intervention and reablement in addition to an approach that builds on people’s strengths and assets to ensure they are as independent as possible.

We are also about to embark on phase 2 of this programme. It will update staff regarding future plans, and gather their thoughts on how we can further implement this approach to support people with a learning disability or mental health condition.  

Digital programme gets underway

Our Digital Programme launched this week, with a presentation to senior managers and some members, including the deputy leader. 

Colleagues from the council and partners Microsoft, Thoughtonomy and itelligent-I, explained how the two-year programme will allow residents to transact with the council online, quickly, securely, easily, all day and any day.

The digital front end will be matched by improvements in our back-office processes, which will include the use of ‘virtual assistants’ – computer software that will do the administrative processes, freeing people up to do work of greater value.  This will be the first use by local government of this exciting artificial intelligence capability.  The programme also includes the development of advanced Business Intelligence processes, involving analysis of ‘big data’ across services, to enable better insights and potentially earlier interventions in support of residents. To put it simply, it will make us a much more efficient forward-thinking organisation.

Cabinet reviews performance and budget

Cabinet met this week and for those of not in the know, or perhaps new to the council, cabinet meets regularly to agree policy, plans and strategies, and the overall direction of the council.

The agenda this week focused on the budget and monitoring how we’re doing, and to ensure plans are in place to deliver a balanced budget at end March 2019. Members also reviewed our overall performance and the progress we’re making to deliver the transformation programmes such as adult care and children and families. We’re pleased to update that we are making good progress and starting to see a difference in service delivery and outcomes for users and customers – so thank you to all of you for your continued hard work.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Unveiling a new Bourne Hill identity

This week we are celebrating our return to Bourne Hill.

It’s a satisfying moment, and one that’s possible only thanks to the hard work of a lot of people.

It’s also a good time to say thanks to everyone for all your patience over the last months.

We know it has at times been a trying and frustrating experience – but as you’ll appreciate, entirely necessary. We had to ensure the building was ready for our staff and the public. And we’ve done that.

We’re also sure that everyone working at or visiting the offices will enjoy the new surroundings.

The silver lining in this difficult episode is the fact that we have seized the chance to create a more attractive, more pleasant and brighter environment that reflects the hubs at Chippenham and County Hall. To name just a few of the improvements, you will see;

• a light and airy atrium, providing a welcoming and attractive entrance to the building
• better lighting, air-con and heating
• more space for break-out sessions
• smarter, more colourful décor – providing a more cheerful and agreeable working atmosphere

Teams had the opportunity to view the offices on Thursday and Friday and to have an update from Alistair on the work that’s taken place as well as ask any questions. The ways of working will be consistently applied over the three hubs including desk ratios, flexible working practices and break out areas for meetings.

This week the Families and Children’s Transformation programme board met. Along with our partners we discussed how we are progressing with projects to help us continue to improve the services we provide for children and young people. There is a new webpage for FACT where you can find out more detail. 

We are preparing for one last push in our canvass, as residents continue to return their household enquiry forms. It might seem at times like an unglamorous admin chore, but in reality it forms an important foundation of our democratic process. Free and fair elections depend on a reliable and accurate electoral roll. That’s why we take such pains to ensure that our voting list is up-to-date, and that everyone who has the right to cast a ballot gets the chance to do so.

This year we aimed to make the process even ever than before, by promoting online and text replies for the enquiry form. More than 159,000 forms of the forms sent out – 72% - have been completed, with 70,000 - 44% - of those returned digitally.

We’re delighted with that response because it means people are securing their right to vote, and because digital responses save money by cutting down postal costs and the time our staff spend on processing forms. It’s a great solution that works for everyone. The canvass ends on 5 November.

Our EmployAbility Fair returns to County Hall in a couple of weeks on 2 October. Teams are working hard to prepare for this event, which supports jobseekers with disabilities by putting them in touch with employers and support services. Around 30 organisations will attend including Wiltshire Police, Asda, BT Openreach and Longleat. Last year's event was well attended and enormously popular, and we’re looking forward to another success next month.

It is unjust and unacceptable that people with disabilities are denied good jobs. We’re so glad that some great organisations in our county, including ourselves, can see past disability and appreciate the value of a more inclusive workforce. There is so much untapped talent waiting to be discovered, so we hope this will provide a productive platform for people with disabilities to showcase themselves to high-profile recruiters.

This has been a week when all three of us have been out and about in the community, meeting staff and staying closely in touch with the way our services are received across the county.

As we already discussed, Alistair met staff at Bourne Hill and has attended a number of other meetings related to the ongoing recovery of Salisbury and Amesbury. 

Carlton has been visiting adult social care teams, and experiencing the important work our teams are doing in the field. He will be out meeting more teams in the coming months.

Terence is scheduled to meet fellow directors of children’s services across the south west today in Taunton to discuss common issues. 

Carlton and Terence also met around fifty new staff attending the induction session yesterday. A lively group who will undoubtedly be an asset to the teams they have joined.

We also met colleagues from Wiltshire Police for one of our regular face-to-face meetings, where we talked about how we work together, forthcoming projects and how we keep the people of the county safe. 

As you can see, it’s already a busy autumn for us and for everyone at the council – just like we promised in our last blog!

Thanks for all your hard work and dedication.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Six months on and a big week in the Salisbury incident investigation

 This week marked six months since the first incident in Salisbury and a significant move in the investigation, with Counter Terrorism Police having enough evidence to charge two Russian men over the novichok attack. We hope this breakthrough provides reassurance to all those who have been affected by this incident, and shows just how seriously the police have taken this investigation.

Wiltshire Council continue to support Salisbury and Amesbury to ensure they thrive in the long-term. We would like to take this opportunity to again thank everyone right across the council, who have been involved in the recovery work so far. Likewise, we thank everyone who has been carrying out the ‘business as usual’ work as the incidents have had a knock-on effect on workloads. Your professionalism under pressure has been admirable.

While Alistair has been on annual leave this week, we led discussions with directors around the budget and upcoming cabinet and full council meetings.

Carlton attended meetings with our health partners Tuesday along with a visit to FDM printers Thursday, in his capacity as returning officer and electoral registration officer. This visit provided an opportunity to have a tour of the building to ensure the processes and quality assurance of all the print wok for our elections and annual canvass. We left feeling reassured of the quality of work and the systems in place.

Terence has been in various meetings planning and preparing for the impending Ofsted inspection. Terence and Lucy undertook a visit to the safeguarding team in the South of Wiltshire to spent time working with, and learning from, staff and their experiences.

With children now back to school, and some starting for the first time, this week saw the culmination of all the hard work of our admissions team in allocating places. As you can imagine this is an immensely difficult logistical challenge. Now the process starts again for next year’s school places, we wish our fabulous admissions team luck!

Dyson revealed plans to submit a planning application for their proposed campus at Hullavington Airfield last week. If it all goes through the plans will bring investment and high-skilled jobs to the county. Having a global brand like Dyson on our doorstep has been extremely valuable to the Wiltshire economy and it’s encouraging that they clearly value the opportunities available in our county.

Speaking of investment, this week’s Melksham Area Board heard a report on the progress of the town centre campus. Plans are moving forward well and when it opens as expected in 2021, it will provide a modern facility with a long-term sustainable future. It was also confirmed at the meeting that unfortunately the difficult decision has been taken to close the Christie Miller Sports Centre permanently next month. The centre is run for us by Places for People, and their staff will be offered jobs at other centres. It needed expensive work to get the centre to a good state to operate effectively, and that really wasn’t sensible given it was going to be replaced in the long-term. The centre was always going to close as part of the campus project which will be disappointing for some who use the leisure facilities or are based at the centre however, we will work to relocate the clubs that use the centre as best we can.

Melksham has seen major investment over the last 18 months, and the campus will be an impressive asset right at the heart of the community.

We’ll speak to you again next week.

Carlton and Terence