Sorry for the
lack of blogs recently. It’s been a particularly busy month, but now we’re out
the other side and have come up for a bit of air, it’s nice to able to reflect
on, and share with you, what we’ve been up to.
Months of planning comes to a hugely
successful conclusion
After all the
preparation and build up, the Armed Forces Day National Event happened last
weekend. The event was a great success and the feedback received so far has
been overwhelmingly positive; it was great to see so many people enjoying the
weekend with their family and friends. We were keeping our fingers crossed for nice
weather but perhaps we did it a little too tightly as there was heatwave
temperatures on-site. It didn’t spoil anyone’s fun but certainly wasn’t easy
for everyone working there. 
The reason for
the weekend was of course the Armed Forces, and it was a sight to behold to see
all the different military services come together and show people what they’re
all about. It was an absolute privilege to host the parade in Salisbury and, all
that took part got a brilliant reception, both from the thousands in the crowd,
and HRH The Princess Royal.
At Hudson’s
Field, the performances of bands like the Kaiser Chiefs and The Feeling,
together with local homegrown talent, really went down well and the atmosphere was
electrifying.
We can’t
understate what a monumental team effort it was from everyone involved before
and during the event. Lots of our staff have worked round the clock in its
planning, working with our partners day in and day out making sure every detail
was covered and more importantly than anything, ensuring everyone attending was
safe. We’ve taken away so much learning and forged many new working relationships
and friendships among partners and colleagues throughout this time.
We would like
to thank everyone involved for their help ensuring the success of this event.
It’s Scarborough’s turn next year, and we wish them all the very best, but, and
we say this in the nicest possible way, we think they’ve got their work cut out
to match what we achieved.
Ofsted inspection comes to an end
Our children’s
services teams have been through an extremely intense time with the Ofsted
inspection recently taking place. A couple of weeks ago you may have heard a
collective sigh of relief from where you were working when the inspectors left
the site and the main part of inspection came to an end.
Our teams worked
tremendously hard to ensure the inspectors got a complete picture of how our
services work in Wiltshire. The inspectors reviewed the entirety of children’s
services, from the initial referrals coming into the MASH team, through to
Children in Care, Care Leavers and Adoption.
All of the teams pulled together to work exceptionally hard to showcase
the excellent work that is undertaken on a daily basis and we are positive that
the inspectors were shown just how hard we all work to ensure the most
vulnerable children in our society are at the centre of all we do.
We are now in
the period of waiting to receive the final report that will tell us our result. There will be opportunity for us to ensure
the report is factually accurate before it is published. We will be sure to share the results with you
as soon as we are able.
Thank you to
everyone for their hard work and commitment during this time, it’s been a real
team effort – which is something of a theme of this week’s blog.
MASH makes its mark
On Monday 17 June,
we officially launched our Adult Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) alongside
key partners. Modelled on our highly successful children’s MASH, the team is
made up of a number of professionals led by ourselves, Wiltshire Police and NHS
Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group. The aim of the Adult MASH is to
safeguard adults in a joined-up way and ensure those in need get the right
support as quickly and effectively as possible.
The service got
underway last year and in that time the team has received more than 4,000
concerns and more than 1,200 investigations have been carried out. It’s well
documented that the demand on adult services is increasing and the Adult MASH
has already played a key part in strengthening information sharing and decision
making.
Protecting all vulnerable
people in Wiltshire is our top priority and we’re pleased to see the positive
results that our MASH model has achieved so far.
A busy week…
Finally, what a
busy week this has been! This week has
seen each of us attending meetings across the country, including the likes of
the Local Government Association Annual Conference in Bournemouth, Cabinet at County Hall, a Defence Committee, the HR Excellence Awards in London, and the ADCS Conference in Manchester.
Our HR team
were shortlisted for awards in two categories, unfortunately they were not successful this year however – being nominated alongside some huge private
sector companies was, in itself, a fantastic achievement and our
congratulations go to all our HR staff involved in this.
Following
Baroness Jane Scott’s decision to stand down, you will have seen the news that
Philip Whitehead has been voted in by the Conservative group as their new party
leader.
Next week, Full
Council will meet and during this meeting a new leader of the council will be
voted in. Once the decision has been made we will ensure you’re all updated on
the change.
Jane standing
down leaves some big boots to fill in the council, her hard work, dedication
and strong leadership has really shaped the unitary council here in Wiltshire
and she will be sorely missed. We do of
course wish Jane all the very best in everything she does going forward. Jane will remain a local councillor and I am
sure we will continue to see her at to council meetings going forward.
Alistair, Carlton and Terence
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