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