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