A busy summer ahead

Hello,

We are almost in the summer holiday period, and while this means that the number of meetings reduce, there is little sign of the organisation slowing down. The programme of work across service areas combined with the incidents in Amesbury and Salisbury is keeping us all busy.

On Tuesday evening a special community meeting was held in Salisbury to update local people on the investigation following the recent incident and on the recovery programme, and, most importantly, to provide an opportunity for local people to ask questions and raise their concerns with a panel of representatives including Alistair, Wiltshire Police and Public Health England.

About 200 members of the public attended and so far the live broadcast of the meeting (available on our Facebook page) has been seen around 7,500 times and this number is rising.

A special community meeting was also held last night, this time in Amesbury, to update the local community and to enable a question and answer session. This meeting was also broadcast live.

These meetings are a really important way of engaging with local communities, and gaining a better understanding of their concerns; particularly given the recent extraordinary events that have taken place and the ongoing media attention that these have generated.

Throughout the recovery phase we will be doing all we can to support the communities of Amesbury and Salisbury. We recognise that full recovery will take time and we need to support the local economy and wider community, both in the immediate aftermath of the incidents, and in the longer term. The government’s recent announcement of a further funding to provide immediate support enables us to continue to allocate grants and business rate relief to those affected during this difficult period. 

The long-term plans to support the local economy have been discussed with central government and include accelerating local development and regeneration programmes to bring jobs and investment to the wider local community. We will update on this programme in future blogs.

This week the Officer Appointments Committee meets to consider two Tier 2 appointments -Education & Skills and Learning Disabilities & Mental Health. We’ll update you on the outcome of the interviews as soon as possible.

During the summer, the Families and Children’s Transformation team will be attending various family fun days to speak to parents and carers to better understand what’s important to them and how they want to be supported during times of need. You can have your say by going to our Families and children’s transformation survey 2018

Our Black, Minority, Ethnic Staff Network held their regular meeting this week with four guest speakers. Kerry Beety and Saeed Naizai told an inspiring story of a young refugee child's journey to the UK and how he found a loving new family through fostering; Hári Sewell, a management consultant and former NHS executive director, gave a motivational talk on making a positive impact in society; and senior democratic services officer Will Oulton spoke about the importance of blood donation and the need for more BME donors. Well done to everyone involved in organising and taking part in this event.

Just a reminder that the changes to recycling collections comes into effect next Monday with the aim of encouraging everyone to recycle more and reduce the waste collected. The team has done a great job raising awareness of the extra items you can now recycle and you can find out more on our website.

Finally, for those of you taking a break during the school holidays, enjoy some time off and if it’s a staycation fingers crossed the sunshine lasts!

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Amesbury update

As you’ll be aware the eyes of the world’s media are once again focused on Wiltshire following a major incident being declared in the early hours of Wednesday last week and last night we heard the tragic news that Dawn Sturgess had died as a result of coming into contact with the nerve agent Novichok. 

Having a death occur in our local community; particularly in such extraordinary circumstances will undoubtedly affect local residents and we will continue to support them and our partners in any way we can whilst the police carry out their investigation into this dreadful crime.  

A public meeting will be held in Amesbury tomorrow evening (Tuesday 10 July). Local and national partners will be attending to update and provide support and reassurance to the town. The Prime Minister has also committed support to helping the local communities of both Amesbury and Salisbury. Salisbury has shown such stoicism and resilience since the first incident occurred in March and we will continue to provide help, where it is needed, throughout this extremely difficult period for both of these local communities.

As we have said previously we need dedicated resource to support Amesbury and Salisbury and we recognise that we also need sufficient resource to continue to deliver council services and the important programmes that are vital to transforming how we work in the future. We are therefore discussing appropriate interim arrangements to ensure we have resource allocated where it is needed for the foreseeable future.

We will keep you updated you on the incident and recovery situation and please remember that the guidance from Public Health England remains that there is not a significant health risk to the wider public.

Last week cabinet met and discussed our improvement in adoption performance, future ownership of traveller sites, and housing provision in the county (an issue which will be discussed again at Full Council tomorrow).

We were really pleased that cabinet agreed a further investment of £1.2m for children’s services to help address the expected increase in demand for social care services in the coming years. The increase reflects a national trend and the funding will help provide additional social workers to meet the increasing demand and ensure we can achieve our ambitious plans to improve outcomes for children.

The hot weather looks set to continue and we fully appreciate that County Hall is extremely warm and at times we know it’s an uncomfortable working environment. The air handling system is under extraordinary pressure as a result of the continued high temperatures and some serious technical failures. We’re working to fix the problems and to review what system the building needs for the future. In the meantime, wherever possible consider working in other hubs, or from home whilst this matter is resolved.

And, we must just say a huge well done to senior corporate support officer Kartar Singh, who won the Local Government Challenge at last week’s LGA national conference. This is nothing short of an incredible achievement – for those who aren’t aware, the competition sees the best and brightest local government officers compete in a series of real-life events around the country. The final was held at the annual conference in Birmingham and Kartar really impressed the judges. Well done Kartar a great accolade for you and the council!

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Thank you

Hello,

We’ll start this week with a really big thank you – to everyone who supported us as we cycled the length and breadth of Wiltshire last week.

It was some ride – 130-odd miles – but it was a beautiful day and it’s fair to say we enjoyed it. Most of it, anyway!

The ride was a real team achievement and we are so pleased that together we raised more than £3,000 for Wiltshire Mind, which is a great cause.

Thanks to everyone who donated to our Just Giving page, and to our support team on the day, who made everything run so smoothly.

We’d particularly like to thank the #EPIC team, who set themselves the challenge of engaging staff to beat our 130 miles…which they did quite comfortably with around 725 miles ridden on exercise bikes in Trowbridge, Chippenham and Salisbury – a fantastic achievement which helped raise £315 towards our total.

Thanks also go to all the riders who took part and especially Steve Manning, who had the original idea for the ride and turned it into reality. And, knowing Steve, he is already mapping out an even tougher challenge for next year…

While we’re talking about #EPIC, well done to the team who were finalists at yesterday’s HR Excellence Awards. Terence joined them for the awards ceremony, where our staff engagement work was nominated in two categories - most innovative deployment of HR technology, and outstanding employee engagement strategy.

This is a brilliant achievement from what is, let’s not forget, a relatively new team which has already achieved so much and deserves recognition – and no doubt there’ll be lots more achieved in the near future.

On the subject of recognition there is still time to get your nominations in for individuals or teams who you think have gone above and beyond and deserve an Achieving Excellence award. Please make your nomination here by the end of the week.

You’ll no doubt be aware of the media coverage of the visit of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall to Salisbury last week.

More than 5,000 people were at the Market Square to see Their Royal Highnesses and they took time to meet the traders and businesses that were directed affected in The Maltings and all those who have been involved in the incident – either as a first responder, or as part of the recovery programme. The city is starting to get back to normal and the Royal visit was a huge boost attracting so many visitors. This weekend (30 June) the winning bid to host next year’s National Armed Forces Day will be announced. If ever there was a time and place for recognising the role of the military – it surely has to be Salisbury that’s chosen – fingers crossed!

Looking ahead to next week, Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting has a really busy agenda. While the headlines from the meeting will no doubt focus on housing (with a big attendance expected for the item on the site allocations plan), the agenda touches on so many parts of our work – including gypsy and travellers, adult social care, governance, social workers, adoption, and an update on our overall performance which affects all areas.

We’ll update on that, and more, next week.

Finally, thanks to all of you for your patience during the hot weather – we’re aware that working conditions are quite uncomfortable for many, particularly at County Hall, and we would urge you to ensure you read the latest advice to help you stay as comfortable as possible. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

The Bustard Ride is nearly upon us

Hello,

Well the day has almost arrived, as tomorrow – the longest day – we will be setting off bright and early for the 130 mile Bustard Ride around Wiltshire.

We’re as prepared as we can be for what promises to be a challenging but great day – if a somewhat exhausting one!

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored us in raising money for the mental health charity Wiltshire MIND. If you haven’t sponsored us yet, please do so by visiting our Just Giving Page

We’re really grateful for the support we’ve been shown by so many of you – so far around £1,800 has been pledged – and not just with sponsorship, but also by those taking part either in the ride itself or  providing support along the route. In addition the #EPIC team have set you all a challenge to beat our 130 miles by riding exercise bikes that will be set up in County Hall, Monkton Park and Churchfields so please take an opportunity to support this…and if you fancy it, you can hop on one of the bikes too. We wish them and you the best of luck.

We’ll let you know how we get on and we have chosen the longest day to allow time and light if we need it! You can follow our progress on twitter – follow @wiltscouncil – or on our website.

Tomorrow is also the summer Solstice and many staff are involved in supporting this major event which attracts thousands of visitors.

Talking of major events this week ends with what promises to be amazing memorable day in Salisbury with the visit of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall to the city to supports its recovery.

They’ll be meeting members of the public and local businesses before a special reception at the Guildhall to meet first responders and all those who have been involved in the city’s recovery programme.

The recovery took another step forward this week with the handing back of Amesbury ambulance station, the third site to be handed back, following The Maltings shopping centre and Salisbury ambulance station. Salisbury is returning to normal and visitor numbers are slowly picking up.

Later on Friday, the Families and Children’s Transformation Programme Board meets in Devizes - FACT is a real multi-agency programme, which is now into its second phase with a focus on:

• No Wrong Door – an integrated multi-disciplinary service for young people aged 12 – 25 who are either in care or on the edge of care
• The development of a joint systems leadership approach
• Bringing multiple case management systems into one system to ensure all information is shared in one place.There will be more on the outcomes from this meeting in next week’s column, and we’ll continue to keep you updated on this important programme as it grows and develops.

Carlton spent the day with senior managers from adult social care and public health on Tuesday. The away day was a great opportunity for the team to discuss their priorities, values, what great management and leadership look like, and the exciting transformation journey that lies ahead. Thanks to everyone who took part, and for the superb support from the HR&OD team.

Finally, you may be aware that all our special schools for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are now at full capacity and at least 220 new special school places will be required by 2026. In the north of Wiltshire 70 additional places for children with complex needs will be required. Several options will be explored to assess how this provision for pupils with special needs in the future can be met. We are consulting on the options to help decide the future investment in special educational needs schools.

Please do respond yourself, if you would like to, and please do share with friends and family before 31 July. You can find the consultation here.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Bustard Ride, community recovery and Cabinet updates

Hello,

We’d like to start with a thank you to all of you so far who have donated to our Bustard Ride, which takes place next Thursday in aid of mental health charity Wiltshire MIND. So far we have raised around £1,000 and we would like to extend a huge thank you for your kind donations which act as a real incentive for us to complete this challenge!

If you haven’t seen the full list of staff taking part please visit our donations page – if you haven’t made a donation yet, we’d really appreciate it if you could support us and your colleagues. We’re all cycling a long way for a really great cause and we would be grateful for as much support as possible. Thank you. Our #EPIC team will also be involved on the day with exercise bikes at County Hall, Monkton Park, and Churchfields.

As you’ll have heard, Tuesday 12 June marked 100 days since the attack in Salisbury and Cabinet held its meeting in the city. It was also announced that The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting Salisbury next Friday (22 June) as part of the city’s recovery. Along with meeting members of the public and local businesses, Their Royal Highnesses will join a reception in the Guildhall to meet those who were the first responders at the incident and those who are helping deliver the recovery work to help the city get back to normal. It promises to be a really special day for Salisbury, helping to boost its profile, the local economy and restore confidence in this beautiful city that it is a great place to visit.

Cabinet discussed and approved a £9m spend on our digital programme, and as part of this we are working with Microsoft on a body of work that will ultimately improve the whole experience for customers. This means that all of us will need to work differently in the future and we’ll update more on what this will mean in future columns.

Cabinet also discussed an investment of £4m in housing to go some way towards meeting demand. It also discussed keeping the outdoor education centres at Oxenwood and Braeside open until the end of the year to allow time for proposals for future use of the buildings to be considered. The end of year budget position was also discussed and as a result of effective financial management we not only delivered a balanced budget in 2017/18, but also an underspend of £410,000.

Yesterday we held our regular forum with managers and heads of service and most of the meeting focused on ‘creating an EPIC workforce’. We always say that staff are our most important asset and we want to make sure that everyone is really engaged. There is clear evidence that the most engaged service areas are those that regularly report EPIC impressions and that complete the most e-learning, have the lowest sickness absences, highest take up of apprenticeships, and leadership and management courses. It was a good discussion, and there’s a lot for managers to think about, action, and discuss with all of you.

The positive work to further integrate partner agencies within our Support and Safeguarding Teams continues, with an Outreach Worker from Wiltshire Substance Misuse being aligned to the teams being confirmed this week. This builds on the Domestic Abuse Family Support Workers who have been within teams since April this year.  

Earlier this week we, along with a number of partners, took part in a Care Quality Commission Summit to discuss the recent targeted review of the local health and social care system, which was carried out earlier this year and published yesterday.

The review was commissioned because there are issues with how effectively the system works as a whole. The final report recognises the hard work and effort already being done by all staff and partners to improve the care and support for Wiltshire residents, and provides useful insight into the areas where we need to do more.

Some of the highlights include people who need care and support being kept safe, staff being recognised for their commitment and caring approach, and praise for our adult social care transformation. As always, what we really want to focus on in is the areas for improvement and we have already produced a detailed action plan to implement a single overarching strategy to address the following areas:

1. New Wiltshire health and social care model
2. A single overarching health and social care strategy, improving outcomes with a focus on prevention and early intervention
3. Strengthening joint commissioning across the whole system
4. Improving Wiltshire’s Health and Wellbeing Board effectiveness
5. Unifying and developing whole system governance arrangements
6. Developing a sustainable integrated workforce strategy
7. Implementing digital opportunities and information sharing across the system
8. Developing a single, integrated communications strategy

We’ll be talking about this a lot more over the next few weeks and months as this important programme of work develops. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Bustard Ride

Hello,

Two cycle rides of a quite different type this week…

Firstly, a huge thank you to the team who pulled together and delivered last week’s amazing OVO Energy Tour Series cycle race in Salisbury, which was held as part of the recovery programme.

From start to finish the event was absolutely brilliant and particular thanks go to those staff who volunteered to work as marshalls and ensure the 8,000 or so people who lined the streets to watch the race were able to safely enjoy the event. 

If you didn’t manage to catch it, the race was shown on ITV4 and is available to watch here. As it is being broadcast in 100 countries, it showed to a worldwide audience what a great city Salisbury is and how it is getting back to normal.

We’re under no illusions that the second ride will draw slightly smaller crowds…our very own Tour de Wiltshire rolls off the starting line at County Hall on 21 June as we set off on a 130-mile bike ride around the county to raise money for the mental health charity, Wiltshire MIND.

The idea for the marathon cycle emerged from last year’s staff engagement forums after all three of us made the mistake of admitting that we are keen cyclists.

Quite a few of you challenged us to turn our passion for pedalling towards a useful purpose – and the Bustard Ride was born.

Our thanks go to Steve Manning, from the environmental health team, who came up with the idea and has put a considerable amount of his own time in to planning the ride.

From Trowbridge, we will cycle a scenic anti-clockwise route around all of our community areas, taking in Warminster, Salisbury, Amesbury, Marlborough, Devizes, Malmesbury, Chippenham and Melksham, before arriving back at the start.

We’ve all taken the day off to complete the challenge and we’ll be joined on the adventure by Chief Constable Kier Pritchard from Wiltshire Police and other colleagues in the organisation and our EPIC staff engagement group will also be supporting us – more details on their involvement will follow in our next update.

Kier’s presence will at least ensure we aren’t tempted to break any speed limits along the way!
Rather than setting any records, our focus is on completing what will be a gruelling nine or ten hour challenge. So it’s no coincidence we’ve picked the longest day of the year to do it!

Wiltshire MIND does an amazing job in campaigning to ensure that everyone experiencing a mental health problem can get the support and respect they deserve. It’s an organisation that is very close to all our hearts, and they need every penny they can get to continue their priceless work.

We’re keen to raise as much money as possible – if you’d like to support us, our JustGiving page can be found at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bustard-ride-wiltshire

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Milestone in Salisbury recovery

Hello,

We reached a significant milestone in the recovery of Salisbury this week with the Maltings site area being handed back to the recovery coordinating group by Defra following extensive cleaning and testing by specialist teams.

Work will now be carried out to repair and clean the area ready for opening. Other potentially affected sites – including nearby Zizzi and The Mill pub – are being cleaned by specialist teams. Defra is overseeing the work based on expert advice, and with the support of specially trained MOD personnel.

We’re now just over a week away from the grand final of elite cycling's OVO Energy Tour Series which will take place in Salisbury. The race action will be shown in two hour-long highlight programmes on ITV4 in the UK, as well as in over 100 countries worldwide, showcasing Salisbury to an international audience. From our perspective, it isn’t just about cycling of course, and there will be a range of free fun activities taking place during the day, with something for everyone to enjoy in the city.

An update on the Salisbury recovery was given to members earlier today at Full Council by Jane Scott and Alistair, outlining the progress which has been made and the support we have given to businesses, and the city more widely. The update finished with a round of applause from members for a job really well done to the very wide range of people and organisations who have been involved in the recovery – a sentiment echoed by us. To keep up to date on Salisbury developments, follow Wiltshire Council on Twitter and visit our dedicated webpage at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/salisbury

Another milestone this week – this time in adult social care where the transformation programme entered another phase with a new structure model now in place which will underpin a number of changes that will gradually be introduced over the coming weeks and months. We believe these changes will significantly improve how we provide these care services. These include further developing our Help to Live at Home service, improving people’s first point of contact to the service, introducing an adult care Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) based on the model we have in place for children, creating and running a council reablement service, and continually developing how we commission services. We will keep you updated, but for more information on some of the work the team are doing, please visit The Wire.

Another key transformation programme is digital, which is helping to improve how we will deliver our services more efficiently and effectively into the future. Part of this is making it as easy as possible for members of the public to report issues and so we’ve given the web version of My Wiltshire a fresh new look which will hopefully improve the overall experience for the user. The system is now a well-established means for people to contact the council about a range of issues at a time it suits them, and overall it has helped us become a much more efficient and responsive organisation. You can find out about all the changes on our website, and we should point out that the app version of the system won’t be changing just yet.

Finally, we joined with the rest of the organisation in joining in the minute’s silence held today to mark the first anniversary of the Manchester Arena attack. Our thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Planning for the future

Hello,

Cabinet took place earlier today and discussed a couple of really important issues which will shape our county over the next few years – special schools and housing.

These are both subjects which really engage people, and the council chamber was packed for the meeting.

Cabinet agreed to begin a consultation to assess how best to meet the requirements for special school provision in Wiltshire into the future. We need an additional 220 places by 2026 for children and young people with special needs and/or disabilities. It’s really important that children with special educational needs are given high quality local placements, and in a large county likes ours it’s essential that these are provided in the right places geographically, with a balance between the north and the south. It’s not just about providing the right number of spaces, but about providing inspiring, state-of-the-art special schools which offer excellence in both education and outcomes for all pupils.

There was a good deal of discussion and questions about the draft Housing Site Allocations Plan which sets out how we will plan for growth and meet housing needs up to 2026, and this debate will continue when the issue comes back to Cabinet and Full Council before the summer.

Last week in Salisbury we welcomed the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV, who came to see how the city is recovering following the incident in March. The Ambassador took in some of the sights of the city before visiting the area in which the incident on 4 March took place. He was positive about the city and its recovery, and also praised the community’s resilience. The decontamination work carries on and we are continuing to support businesses and residents. The changes to free car parking took effect on Monday and we will monitor the impact this has.

Fostering Fortnight began yesterday and to coincide with this we’ve put out a call for more people who can offer a foster home to a child to come forward. We need to find 120 foster families over the next three years to cope with the demand, and we need 36 of those this year. You can find out more at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/fostering

We’re always keen to celebrate success – so well done to the team who were highly commended recently at the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport Annual Presidents Dinner for the pothole spotter trial. This pioneering project, jointly conducted with York City Council and Thurrock Borough Council, uses high definition cameras attached to our waste vehicles to monitor and scan Wiltshire’s roads to identify potential potholes. The data gathered can then be used to help inform decision-making about road repairs. A great example of cross-service working to deliver real improvements.

Looking ahead, if you’re going to be watching the Royal Wedding and want to do so in a unique way, why not head to Salisbury to join BBC Wiltshire’s party where the ceremony will be broadcast on 50ft screens outside Salisbury Cathedral. The event takes place from 9am-4pm, and they’ll be family friendly entertainment, live music performances and more. 

You can see our latest highlights presentation on The Wire.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Salisbury shortlisted for Armed Forces Day

Hello,

We hope you all managed to enjoy at least some of the brilliant sunshine over the long weekend (it doesn’t seem all that long ago we were talking about snow!) and are back to work feeling refreshed. Our thanks go to those staff who worked or were on call over the Bank Holiday.

Some really positive news – our joint bid, submitted alongside Salisbury City Council, for the city of Salisbury to host the Armed Forces Day National Event next year has been shortlisted and goes through to the next assessment stage.

This is a huge event in the calendar, and if we are ultimately successful it will be a tremendous boost to the city and a fitting way to thank the military personnel and emergency services that have supported the recovery programme.

The clean up operation in Salisbury continues and last week, eye-catching displays were put up to help promote businesses and direct visitors to the city’s attractions. Having discussed with businesses the impact of free parking in Salisbury, we are taking some steps to increase the turnover of spaces for shoppers and visitors. From next Monday parking will be free from midday on weekdays and all day on weekends. Park and ride sites will remain free, and we’ll continue to monitor the impact of how these measures are supporting the local economy.

Later today we are officially opening ‘Rothermere’, a combined innovative treatment hub and alcohol treatment service in Trowbridge, which we’ve worked in partnership to deliver. The ground floor will be an operational drug and alcohol treatment service, run by Turning Point, with the first floor a self-contained five-bedroom flat, with communal kitchen and bathroom, managed by Julian House. Tenants will go through the drug and alcohol treatment service and get support from both Turning Point and Julian House following their rehabilitation. It’s the first of its kind in the county and will make a real difference to the lives of those who need the support. 

The Staff Voices Conference takes place tomorrow in celebration of the National Day for Staff Networks. Staff Voices is the banner name for our staff networks (BME, LGBT+ and Carers and Disability) who are co-ordinated and work together. We are firmly committed to the principles of diversity and inclusion, not just in the way we delivery our services but also the kind of workplace we are. 

And finally – our annual Big Pledge campaign launches on Monday. This year it’s called Beat the Clock and encourages people to make personal pledges to get more active. The campaign runs from 14 May to 8 July and you can find out more about how you can get involved by visiting the website or watching this short video.

Our latest highlights presentation can be found on the intranet.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Televised cycle event coming to Salisbury

Hello,

In Salisbury, the clean up of affected sites continues, alongside our work with partners on the recovery plan for the city. As part of this, we announced at the end of last week that the city will host the Grand Final of the OVO Energy Tour Cycle series on 31 May. As a milestone in the cycling calendar, this is a real coup for the city and it will also bring a huge number of people in to the area who we hope will have a look around the city and see for themselves how Salisbury is recovering. The action will be shown on ITV4, along with more than 100 countries worldwide.

We are putting a call out for your support as we need marshals to assist with the delivery of the event, which will attract a large number of spectators. You would be required on site in Salisbury city centre from 3:30pm to 10pm approx.

If you would like to be part of the team and help to deliver this exciting event, please contact events@wiltshire.gov.uk by Friday 4 May.

We attended this year's South Wilts Business Expo at the Guildhall in Salisbury on Wednesday, which was a great opportunity to let residents know about lots of exciting entertainment and activities coming up in the city. This includes BBC Wiltshire’s forthcoming live screening of the Royal Wedding at Salisbury Cathedral.

On Thursday we met with leaders from right across the health and social care system in Wiltshire, to look at how we could work better together. It was agreed by everyone that there is a great deal of excellent work taking place, but that we could actually deliver more benefits for our residents if this work was more integrated. All agencies committed to a single overarching strategy to provide more effective prevention, health and social care outcomes for the population.

As part of this we will strengthen the arrangements of the health and wellbeing board, develop an integrated workforce strategy, and develop and review governance. We also reaffirmed our commitment to appoint a joint Corporate Director/Accountable Officer post for the council and the clinical commissioning group this year. There’s a lot of exciting work ahead – and we’ll keep you updated along the way.

The Ofsted Annual Conversation also took place last week. The name, of course, doesn’t reflect how often we interact with Ofsted, and this meeting - a formal discussion which enables critical self-evaluation - is part of our ongoing dialogue with them. We discussed with Ofsted our social care self-assessment, education and skills performance, and our future transformation plans. The initial feedback we received was positive, with formal feedback expected in the next two weeks. We’ll share this when we have it.

This week we’ll be launching a month-long campaign to encourage 11,000 people to sign on to the electoral roll ahead of the annual electoral canvass later in the summer. The more work and preparation we do now, the better shape we’ll be ahead of the summer. You have to be registered to vote to have your say in any local or national election, and although there is no major election on the horizon, by-elections regularly take place throughout the county along with other local referendums. If you want to have a say on development in your area, such as neighbourhood plan referendums, you need to be on the electoral register.

The regular Coaching Network meeting takes place this week in Trowbridge, with a talk on ‘stillness in coaching’ by guest speaker Penny Gundry. We always say that our people are our greatest asset and we’re committed to the continuous personal and professional development of our staff. We fully endorse coaching as a tool – it provides a confidential environment for staff to explore themes affecting their daily working lives and ways to move forward positively in their roles. If you haven’t considered coaching before, we’d highly recommend a conversation with your manager about it.

You can find out more about our coaching offer on the intranet.

Finally, booking has opened for the second #EPIC Talk which takes place at the end of the month – sign up now to hear RUH cardiologist Dr Ali Khavandiv talk about how to improve our health, blood pressure, cholesterol and weight through contemporary evidence-based dietary interventions. Further details are available on our website.

You can see our latest highlights presentation on the Wire.


Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Bourne Hill update and today's cabinet meeting

Hello,

We would like to start this week’s blog by saying a huge thank you to all the teams that have relocated in the Bourne Hill offices. Your positive contribution to the move has ensured that any disruption to service provision and users has been kept to a minimum. Our thanks also go to all those involved in making the move happen so swiftly and efficiently.

As you may be aware the front-facing customer services staff (including housing and benefits) has remained at Bourne Hill and is now located to the old part of the building, the Registry office.

Wiltshire Police contact centre is now located in Salisbury Library. The move was required to enable work to clean up the locations potentially contaminated. This work by the specialist team gets underway this week.

Last week the fourth community recovery meeting was held in Salisbury and focused on updating local people on the decontamination and clean-up work. You can see the presentation on our Supporting Salisbury page or watch the meeting on Youtube or Facebook. More than 3,300 people have watched the footage of this meeting.

Although a considerable amount of time is, quite rightly, being spent on the recovery programme for Salisbury, we are also doing all we can to maintain business as usual and there is a huge amount of work taking place.

At today’s cabinet meeting members discussed a number of diverse issues, including the learning disabilities in-house respite services, the A303 tunnel, the future management of King George V Park in Melksham and a strategy for sexual health and blood borne viruses.

Tomorrow (Weds) the Ofsted Annual Conversation takes place with a visit to children and education. This is part of the new approach by Ofsted which involves an annual conversation between Ofsted and the local authority. This formal discussion, alongside self-evaluation, means we can critically evaluate our own performance and articulate what we think is working well for children in Wiltshire. It will also form part of the intelligence Ofsted use to decide where and when to inspect families and children’s services.

Health and social care continues to integrate more closely but clearly this is something that can’t be done in isolation – on Thursday we’ll be meeting with partners across the health and social care spectrum for a strategic planning session. This will be a key meeting when all partners will work together and adopt a whole system approach to delivering improvement. We’ll update more on this work next week.

Carlton is giving the welcome address at the next BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) staff network event tomorrow. This is a network which staff can choose to join and it offers mutual support, raises awareness and gives advice on specific equality issues as well as acting as a consultative voice to the council. Also speaking will be Cllr Darren Henry, who will give an insight in to his journey to becoming a councillor, and we’ll hear an update on our response to the government's consultation on the integrated communities’ strategy. And there is a performance by local up-and-coming poet Saili Katebe. The meeting takes place on 25 April at 3pm - 5pm in the Cotswold Space at County Hall. Everyone is welcome to attend - to register please email Wali Rahman.

The quarterly staff awards ceremony, the Achieving Excellence Awards, takes place on Thursday afternoon to recognise those staff who have gone above and beyond in the work that they do. Please come along and support your colleagues from 4pm on the first floor balcony at County Hall. Full details of the winners will be announced in this Friday’s Electric Wire.

On the theme of recognition, our community hub programme has been recognised at a number of award ceremonies recently, and on Wednesday night we will find out if we have been successful in the Public Finance Innovation Awards, where the programme has been shortlisted in the community engagement category.

Finally, we’re pleased to announce that Simon Hindey will be joining us as director housing and commercial at the end of July. Simon, who is currently the chief officer for housing at Bracknell Forest Brough Council, has a wealth of experience in housing across a number of local authorities and we look forward to him joining the team.

You can see our latest highlights presentation on the Wire.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Salisbury update and some recent success stories

Hello,

Welcome back to those of you who took leave during the Easter holidays and we hope you have come back feeling refreshed.

There continues to be a large amount of focus on the Salisbury community recovery and last week we held our third community update, with well over 300 people attending City Hall to hear the latest developments and ask questions. We also broadcast this meeting online and, to date, this video has been seen more than 5,500 times, which shows the huge amount of interest in the issue - and also highlights how using this kind of digital technology can help us engage with even more people.

To find out the latest updates on the ongoing situation, visit our dedicated web pages at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/salisbury

Now for a few success stories…

• Congratulations to our Youth Offending team who, after a two year process of improvements and continual assessment, have just been awarded the Achievement for All Quality Mark by the Department of Education for the support they give eight to 17-year-olds who encounter the youth justice system.

• Last week we hosted the latest stage of the Local Government Challenge, which seeks the best and brightest local government officers to compete in a series of real-life challenges around the country. Senior corporate support officer Kartar Singh is among those taking part this year – although there are a few more challenges to go before the winner is chosen, being selected to take part is a great achievement in itself.

• Congratulations to our #EPIC staff engagement group, whose work has just been shortlisted in two categories at the HR Excellence Awards. Their work was shortlisted in the ‘Outstanding employee engagement strategy’ category, while the way we’ve used existing technology for #EPIC engagement was shortlisted in the ‘Most innovative deployment of HR technology’ category. We’ll find out in June if the team have been successful.

Earlier this week the #EPIC group provided an update on their work at our regular forum with Heads of Service and managers. We also discussed the recent health and wellbeing staff survey results, and our digital programme.

Finally, our recruitment to Tier 2 continues. We are currently out to advert for three director roles – finance and procurement, learning disabilities and mental health, and education and skills. We have also offered the role of Director Housing and Commercial to a candidate and will update you on this when we are able to.

You can see our latest highlights presentation here. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Salisbury recovery and positive Ofsted review

Hello,

Hope you all had a nice Easter break, and our thanks goes to everyone who was on call, or had to work over the long weekend.

As a council, our top priority continues to be the recovery of Salisbury and ensuring the city begins to thrive again. A big part of this work is to encourage people to visit the city and support those local businesses who have been so badly affected by recent events. We’re doing everything in our power to provide the city with what it needs and through our #LoveSalisbury campaign, promoting all the many activities that are taking place in the city, particularly over the busy half-term period.

Despite the weather not being on our side over the Easter weekend there’s still plenty of the school holidays left and we hope the many measures we have taken so far, including introducing free parking, will continue to pay dividends and get more and more people into the city and enjoying everything it has to offer. Although it has slightly receded, the national media spotlight continues to be on Salisbury and the work we’re doing, and it has been an incredibly busy and intense time. Thanks again to everyone who continues to support all the Salisbury work and all those affected by it, as it is having a knock-on effect on much of the ‘business as usual’ work we carry out. However, this work with partners will be ongoing for quite some time and we can’t over-stress the importance for us to get this right and ensure that long-term, Salisbury doesn’t suffer.

Last week we were pleased to get the official verdict on our recent Ofsted/Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection into the services to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. We’re delighted to say that overall the report is overwhelmingly positive and that’s testament to all of you who have a role to play ensuring children and young people with SEND get the effective support they need. Some of the highlights include that SEND children achieve well in their early users, there is a strong partnership with parent carers, and that young people are well supported as they move into adult life with integrated teams working closely together. We won’t be complacent though and understand there are areas to develop further and we are working hard to continually make improvements.

We had a glimpse over the weekend just how suddenly we can get the kind of rainfall in Wiltshire that can cause some problems. We had some flood warnings in place and experienced some minor flood-related issues over the course of the weekend and as a precaution the barriers were raised in Bradford on Avon. We know too well the devastation that can be caused by flooding and since 2013/14, when the county was badly affected, we have continued to work with the Environment Agency and local communities to ensure we are as prepared as possible should it happen to that scale again. The weather is extremely unpredictable but with robust detailed flood plans in place, the reaction of ourselves and our communities will be anything but.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence