Tech challenges and winter challenges

ICT – back up and running

We have to start this week’s blog with a thank to everyone in ICT for all they have done this past week to respond to the many issues caused by a cable being accidentally severed by a utilities company. It’s been a challenging time but the team worked round the clock to get as many services back up and running, as quickly as possible. Thanks to all of you for your patience too, as we know it wasn’t easy operating with limited, and in some cases no access, to emails and files.

A care package with lots of promise

Young people receiving their Care Leaver Promise

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that cabinet had outlined plans to provide support for care leavers. Last week we invited those who will benefit from that support to come and find out about the Care Leaver Promise - a package of support and benefits for those leaving care. We want them to feel supported and the range of benefits in the promise include help on finance, health and leisure, accommodation and employment.

This transition can be a challenging time. The promise aims to provide the support that’s needed and hopefully result in a positive long-term impact.

This is an ambitious scheme and one we’re very proud to support. This is just the start of it as well - we aim to keep developing it and making sure they have plenty of opportunities. If you think there might be some opportunities for care leavers in your service area of work please let us know.

Cold weather challenges

Winter is a challenging time for a lot of our services. During this current cold snap, the highways team is ready with their 24 gritting vehicles and salt stock (more than 13,000 tonnes), and have been out monitoring and making sure the roads are clear. 

Likewise, teams from across the council including public health and adult social care are making sure that plans are in place to help keep people as safe and as warm, as possible.

Many of our teams work tirelessly to keep Wiltshire moving and safe, and we appreciate their commitment and the fantastic job they do.

Growing our own

We held a good session as part of our leadership and management programme that focused on ‘growing our own’ and helping you to develop, as much as you want to. If you are aspiring potential manager, please look at grow and speak to your line manager, as there are plenty of opportunities available.

Crunching the numbers

Money has been on our minds again as we continue to meet regularly to finalise the budget for next year (2019/2020).

The cabinet member for finance is hosting four public meetings next month to talk through the future direction of the council. We know that financial decisions will need to be made by Full Council and these forums provide an opportunity to explain the context for any changes and decisions, and it’s always good to hear the views of residents and the challenges that they face, as well as their ideas on where we can improve what we do.  

Our finance team is also carefully looking at this week’s national Autumn budget announcement and awaiting more information to see the details behind the main headlines. We’ll keep you updated on that.   

Salisbury set for Christmas spectacular

The popular Christmas market in Salisbury

The clocks went back this weekend and can you believe it’s less than two months to Christmas. The festive season for retailers and traders is a vital time and more so this year in Salisbury and Amesbury.

To provide a much-needed boost as part of the economic recovery we are supporting activities focused around the Salisbury Christmas Market. This year there will be the addition of an ice rink and live entertainment, as well as a nutcracker trail and the annual lantern parade. The ice rink, a new and exciting venture for the city, will be in the Guidhall Square and open for bookings from 15 November through to 6 January. With free park and ride on offer, may be consider Salisbury as a destination for your Christmas shopping and a skate this year!

Alistair, Carlton and Terence 

A week of meeting staff, rewarding great work...and Daleks

Pop a question and get engaged

We’re looking forward to hearing all your questions at the staff engagement forums.

Just a quick reminder to book your place.

We would like you all to attend so please book a venue near to your main hub, if possible. We’re working with HR to plan these events carefully so that we make sure they are as valuable as possible for everyone.

Thanks due for a good job well done

It’s always rewarding to thank staff for a job well done, and this week sees us present some much-deserved recognition at the Achieving Excellence Awards.

These awards honour work that might otherwise sneak under the radar. The stories behind the nominations are inspiring and interesting, and if you have been shortlisted we look forward to meeting you and congratulating you in person.

Book your ‘Bring a Corporate Director to Work’ day

We’re keen to venture around Wiltshire and visit where you work as much as possible.

This week Terence went on his travels to meet some of the leisure teams, and our social care teams based in, and around Chippenham. The meeting with leisure centre users and hearing their experiences was very interesting and helpful.  It was also good to hear about excellent outcomes for our most vulnerable children and young people.  Terence was impressed by the commitment shown, and valued the advice given on how we can improve our offer.  

We will be visiting all your teams; please let us know when you have team meetings, or something you wish to showcase, and we will do our best to get there.

Long term planning to help Salisbury and Amesbury thrive

The Maltings in Salisbury

As we have said in the past few weeks, Salisbury and Amesbury are both now getting back to normal, and we have recently reached another significant milestone. Boots the chemist in Amesbury has now been handed back following cleaning and the management team there are now carrying out their own maintenance work before reopening. This is excellent news for the local community. There are now just two sites still getting specialist cleaning work – Sergei Skripal’s house in Salisbury and Charlie Rowley’s flat in Amesbury. 

We are now in the process of recruiting a team to drive the long-term recovery of South Wiltshire and help the area thrive as much as possible.

Setting boundaries

Just to update on a few events and meetings that took place this week…

One of the main topics discussed at this week’s full council meeting was the review of boundaries and political divisions in the county. These changes will come into effect after the next scheduled local elections in 2021.

The Local Government Boundary Commission has recommended that Wiltshire Council retains 98 councillors, but there will be some significant changes to the set-up of divisions.

This will affect every resident in the county one way or another so it would be worthwhile to have a look at the webpage and find out more about the process and possible outcomes.

The Wiltshire Public Service Board brought together a number of organisations to share ideas and information. There was a lot to discuss including the Local Plan, military covenant, and a look at some of the lessons learnt following the incidents in Salisbury and Amesbury.

We also met with colleagues at the FACT Programme Board meeting to discuss the progress of the programme and ensure we’re staying on track. It gave us an opportunity to review the feedback from the recent partnership event and what we can learn from that, and we also took a look at the overall work programme to see if our method of working continues to be the most effective. We want the FACT Programme to stay fresh and relevant and these get togethers keep the pace of the programme moving and helps steer it in the right direction.

The Health and Wellbeing Board also took place this week. Winter preparedness was high on the agenda. With the weather inevitably getting colder at this time of year it can be a tough time for older and vulnerable people. Services across the council will be working together, and with partners, to ensure we help keep people as safe as possible and that health and social care teams work collaboratively. Our adult social care team will be central to this, and their transformation programme that’s currently underway is already significantly strengthening the service at this vital time of year.

 All the fun of the science fair

Finally, if you happened to be in the vicinity of County Hall on Tuesday you couldn’t have ignored the buzz of our Science and Engineering fair.

It’s not every day you wander around the atrium and bump into Daleks, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and R2D2, but it was that kind of day.

It's not everyday we see a Dalek in the atrium

The fair – attended by primary school children from all over the county - aimed to inspire our future generations and spark their imaginations, to ignite a life-long interest in science and engineering. And given the large number of attendees and their enthusiastic participation in many activities, I think we achieved that spark.

Wiltshire has a rich engineering heritage, and it’s an industry we are continually helping to develop as it brings so much to the county. Hopefully, this event played a part in fostering the sense of wonder and discovery that can encourage tomorrow’s innovators, and sustain this county’s contribution to a crucial area of endeavour.

Children were enthralled at the fair

We'll speak again next week

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Staff forums on the horizon

Book your place for the forums

We’re looking forward to seeing you all at this year’s staff engagement forums, which get underway next month.

The forums are one of the highlights of the year as it’s an opportunity to talk face to face on the direction of the organisation, the priorities and focus for the future and your role in achieving these. 

Every year we try and make the sessions as interactive as possible and your input and feedback will again be a major feature of the time we have together. So, if you haven’t already done so, please book a place at a venue closest to your usual hub, as places are booking up quickly.

A hub re-Bourne

It was good news to see Bourne Hill fully open to the public and staff on Monday.

We would like to thank everyone involved in the Bourne Hill decant for the professionalism they showed during the complicated process of moving offices whilst maintaining high standards of service to the public and we hope you all like the improvements that have been made.  

Alistair recently meeting staff at Bourne Hill

Employees Mark Murnane and Amanda George at Bourne Hill

Budget remains key focus

We are continuing to meet regularly with members and directors to discuss the budget; both this year’s and next year’s. You may recall a cabinet paper last month stated a projected overspend. Whilst this is not unusual at this point in the year, it does mean we have to review spend over the next few months, and look at how we deliver the savings that were approved when the budget was set in February.  While we have delivered a balanced budget in recent years, it is regularly monitoring that ensures we can plan and take action, where it’s needed.

Becky Hellard fills financial post

The director of finance keeps us all on track with the budget and we are currently in the process of recruiting a new director following Michael Hudson, who left the council earlier in the year. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Ian Duncan who stepped into Michael’s shoes for an interim period at such a busy time. Ian will be leaving on 19 October and will be replaced by Becky Hellard on an interim basis. Becky is joining us at a particularly crucial part of the year and we’re looking forward to working with her alongside the cabinet as we look to set next year’s budget. We started the longlisting process of employing a permanent post this week and it was pleasing to see some strong candidates had applied.

Finance is a big challenge for local authorities right now and we look forward to appointing a new director that’s up to the challenge. We will keep you updated.

Taking care of care leavers

Cabinet took place this week and there was some good news for those young people who move from care into independent lives, as it was agreed that the council will waive council tax fees for them up to age 25. This forms part of a newly-created Care Leavers Covenant which we hope supports care leavers in a number of ways at this vital transition in their lives and gives them the opportunities to achieve what they want to.

The latest cabinet meeting took place on Tuesday in the Council Chamber

Meeting the people who matter

Terence will be visiting children’s services team in both Amesbury and Devizes this week. As with the staff engagement forums we mentioned earlier, quality face to face time with staff is always worthwhile, and to get direct feedback, rather than at second or third hand, is much more preferable.

We’ll be working with a number of internal and external colleagues later in the week at a FACT-organised systems leadership training event. The FACT programme brings together many partners and colleagues together, all whom have their own way of working, so this type of training should help ensure we’re working as consistently as possible – which ultimately will be to the benefit of the residents that use our services.

Carlton also attended the last in this recent run of adult social care staff forums, with around 150 people attending.  It was useful to update everyone on the progress of phase 1 of this programme, and to talk with them on what phase 2 will look like. They were all productive sessions so thanks to everyone who came along.

Government visiting Salisbury

And finally, Alistair will be hosting a visit with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on today (Thursday). The visit has a big tourism focus and the Secretary of State will be visiting some of the most popular spots in the city, including the cathedral. We will be implementing a long-term economic plan to ensure the city thrives, and support from the government with this important piece of work is most welcome. 

Salisbury's iconic cathedral 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Good week engaging with staff and the public

Last week and this week the council is hosting a number of engagement events focusing on supporting people in Wiltshire.

FACT event involving partners and families

On Friday we hosted a Families and Children’s Transformation (FACT) Programme event in Devizes. The event focused on how we work with partners and families to improve the future for children and young people. We discussed ideas with the Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Wiltshire Police amongst others, and heard from families, as their input will help influence how we work in the future.  FACT is a huge programme of change with many elements – but, one common goal – how we work together for the benefit of families in Wiltshire. The programme is bringing agencies closer to families so that potential issues or problems can be identified and addressed early. There will be more about the FACT programme as it’s progressed and implemented. It will impact on many areas of the council and as far as we’re concerned, that will be positive. 

                                         Terence addresses the attendees at the FACT Programme Event

Technology helping with dyslexia

We also hosted and facilitated an event (Monday evening) to provide support of a different kind. Dyslexia is a common learning disability but great strides have been taken in recent years to ensure those with Dyslexia have the same opportunities. Three speakers shared information on the latest technology available to help people overcome any problems they may have with their reading, writing and spelling. The event coincided with Dyslexia Awareness Week (which takes place this week) and those in attending found it extremely useful.

Employment opportunities for all

Yesterday (Tuesday) we hosted an EmployAbility Fair in the Atrium at County Hall. This was the second time we’ve hosted the fair and that’s testament to the success of last year’s event. The fair was extremely well attended with more than 160 people coming along, and it focused on employment options and opportunities for local people with a disability.  Around 30 organisations attended including telecommunications providers such as BT Openreach. The event was an opportunity for businesses to tap potential talent just waiting to be discovered. An inclusive workforce provides real value and these types of events help to remove barriers that preclude those with disabilities finding employment.

                                          A packed Atrium at the EmployAbility Fair

Working together to improve health and social care

Yesterday (Tuesday) we held a workshop with partners to assess progress following a CQC review of Wiltshire’s health and social care system.  The review highlighted areas for development, many of which we were already working on.  With our partners we have developed the Wiltshire Integration Programme, which will strengthen links across social and health care and make a big difference to how people journey through the health and social care system.  It was good to reflect on the positive work we’ve done so far and discuss the challenges that lie ahead and how these will be best managed.

Adult social care teams come together

Last week we mentioned our adult social care transformation team was running staff engagement sessions. The first session in Salisbury was attended by 120 staff and was a good opportunity to reflect on the new reablement model introduced in May and its success in helping local residents to live better lives and saving £1m so far. There was lots of interaction and some great questions from a clearly committed workforce. Our thanks go to everyone for their valuable contribution.

Out and about with our social workers

Terence is spending Wednesday shadowing social workers in Salisbury to observe the vital and challenging work they do to support and protect children and young people. Our role requires us to spend a lot of time in meetings, so to have some space to go out with the teams and see front line service delivery is invaluable and definitely time well spent.

Two teams take on the South West Challenge

We’re pleased that Wiltshire Council will be represented at this year’s South West Challenge in Exeter, which takes place this week. This event offers aspiring managers the opportunity to experience issues outside their normal work roles and gain an insight into senior management responsibilities. We’ve entered two teams that will spend the day as management leaders of a fictional local authority tackling tasks that a real corporate team would face.
Good luck to those involved and we’re sure they will enjoy the experience and learn loads.

Council management leaders meet in Taunton

On Friday senior managers across the south west will attend the regular SW Councils’ Chief Executive meeting. Terence will represent us to discuss matters including economic growth in the region. It’s always useful to share experiences and challenges with local authority peers, and exchange ideas that can be implemented.

Back to normal

Last week we announced that free parking after 3pm would be implemented in all our car parks in Salisbury and Amesbury and in all the city’s park and ride sites all day Monday to Saturday. This will help to support local businesses and traders in the run up to Christmas and will hopefully encourage visitors and shoppers to come to Salisbury and enjoy the Christmas Market, and this year the added attraction - an ice rink. Salisbury and Amesbury are getting back to normal and the focus is shifting to the long term economic plan to regenerate the Maltings and promote the city to national and international visitors.

                                          Bustling Salisbury during the recent food and drink festival

And, finally – appraisals all round

All three of us recently had our appraisal with the leader and deputy leader of the council to discuss our performance, priorities and objectives for the next six months. Everyone needs an appraisal to help clarify expectations and discuss their job role and how you can be supported to develop and grow if that’s what you are seeking. All managers will be asked to schedule appraisals over the next few months. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terrence