Temperatures tumble this week

Hello,

It feels like there’s only one place to start this week, and without wishing to state the obvious, it’s very cold!

Our Emergency Planning team is in regular contact with the MET Office and is closely monitoring the situation. We’ve put in place a number of measures, both internally and externally, to make sure we can maintain service delivery and keep people safe during the forecasted extreme weather.

We appreciate that if the forecast is accurate for the end of this week, that some of you may find it difficult to get to work. We’ve taken the decision today to cancel our regular meeting with managers and heads of service tomorrow due to the bad weather, and would ask that all managers check their business continuity plans. If you are affected, please discuss with your manager the options available for you to work from home or remotely. If this isn’t possible, managers have the discretion to authorise paid or unpaid leave, or making up the time. Please refer to the Time off for exceptional circumstances (severe weather) policy.

For those less fortunate, the predicted extreme weather will be particularly difficult. We have put in place our severe weather emergency provisions and we have a statutory duty to provide help to anyone sleeping rough especially when the weather is predicted to fall to 0 degrees or below for three consecutive nights. More details can be found here.

It’s important when people do need to contact us – particularly in an emergency – that it is easy as possible for them to do so and the price of a call is reasonable. Numbers beginning 0845 can be very expensive to call and we’ve instigated an urgent review of their use as we are aware that some services are still using these numbers. We will be encouraging people to use the customer services number (0300 456 0100) and look at discontinuing the use of any numbers which charge people extra. We are looking at interim solutions where we cannot stop using 0845 numbers immediately.

Staff working in Trowbridge today will be aware there has been a major leak on the second floor of old County Hall due to the cold weather. The heating in this area was turned off for some time so it will take a while before the whole of old County Hall is back to normal temperature. We would urge you to avoid this area and make use of hot desking areas elsewhere in the building, or discuss working from home with your manager. Our apologies go to those staff affected by the disruption.

We’ll provide a further update next week – until then, stay warm!

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

An update from Full Council

Today is Full Council and this morning councillors debated and agreed the budget for 2018/19. This included the proposals to save £25 million to fund the increased demand in services; particularly in adult and children’s social care and to increase Council Tax and the Social Care Levy by a total of 5.99%. (Please see our separate message about this here on The Wire.

Members will discuss this afternoon the draft recommendation of the council’s electoral review committee to increase the number of Wiltshire councillors from 98 to 99. The draft recommendations will go to the Local Government Boundary Commission for a decision on the number of elected members that this council should have. Any changes won’t take effect until the next full council election, in 2021. We will update on the outcome in next week’s blog.

Whilst this week there is inevitably a great deal of focus on the budget, we have also discussed with cabinet members (at our weekly meeting yesterday) the Wiltshire Local Plan refresh (updating the Wiltshire Core Strategy to 2036). The discussion focused on how we align future growth - both housing and business - to the council’s aspirations set out in its ten year Business Plan. This needs to include all public sector services – what will be needed and where these will be located; such as health services, police and fire, and how we will work with these partners and others, including the MoD to make sure that we provide the housing, infrastructure and community facilities that Wiltshire needs in the future.  This is a major programme of work for the council and cabinet members will take an in-depth look at the Local Plan Refresh programme of work on the 12 March to agree the next steps.

As you are aware we have a number of other major programmes of work underway. These focus on transforming key services; adults and children’s, implementing digitisation and becoming more commercial. We are also focusing on what more communities can do and where they may be best placed to deliver services and facilities locally.

These programmes form part of the budget proposals being discussed today, as they are all projecting to deliver significant savings. Our programmes to transform how we deliver services were also covered in last year’s peer review, and the peer review findings and recommendations will be published soon. The feedback has helped us to focus on an action plan to deliver improvements and we look forward to sharing this with you shortly.

Finally for this week;

We are pleased to update that we will be hosting the 2018 LGA Local Government Challenge in April. Local government officers compete in a series of real-life challenges and are tasked with problem solving to come up with innovative solutions to the challenges faced by local government. We have been asked to set a challenge which is likely to be around one of our transformation programmes. The LGA allocates a scholarship of £10,000 to the winner and we hope that Kartar Singh (senior corporate policy officer), as one of this year’s contestants, will enjoy the experience and learning and maybe win the scholarship!

And, some of you may be aware that Michael Hudson, director of finance and procurement and the council’s statutory Section 151 officer has announced that he will be leaving Wiltshire Council after seven years to take up the role of director of finance with Worcestershire County Council, which is near to where he lives. During his seven years Michael has ensured that the council has successfully managed its finances including the pension fund, treasury management activity, revenues and benefits and has ensured that a balanced budget has been set and delivered each year despite the significant financial challenges we have faced throughout this period. We would like to thank Michael for this. Michael will leave in May and I am sure you will all join us in wishing him well in his new role. Steps to recruit a replacement for Michael will take place shortly.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence.

#CleanUpWilts and a new director of commissioning

Hello,

Next week the budget for 2018/19 will be finalised following a thorough process. The proposals have been reviewed by Overview and Scrutiny and the committee’s considerations will be submitted to council members to include in their discussion and deliberations. Last week the Government announced additional funding for local authorities. We estimate that we will receive around £1.3m for adult social care services and £665,000 from the Rural Grants fund. This additional funding is welcome given the pressure to find £25m of savings. 

As well as the budget, next week full council will discuss the boundary review and proposals which could have an impact on the number of elected members that will make up the council in the future. It will be an important meeting, and you can view it live on the web feed (Tuesday, 20 February) – it’s always good to see democracy in action and listen to members debating the issues that affect the council; particularly the allocation of funding for the services we deliver.

Talking of funding, each year we spend more on clearing up dropped litter. Currently it’s around £2.5m, which is totally avoidable. Phase 2 of the #CleanUpWilts campaign launched this week with roadshows taking place across the county. The aim is to raise awareness, achieve a shift in behaviour and reduce the amount of litter by encouraging people to dispose of litter responsibly. Thousands of people have signed up as part of a local community group to take part in the Great British Spring Clean in March to tackle hot spots in their area. Last week we were finalists in the Clean Up Britain national awards for the work that our local communities do to improve Wiltshire – a great accolade to all the volunteers who give their time and support. 

We’re pleased to update that last week we appointed Helen Jones to the post of director for commissioning. Unfortunately, we have not been able to confirm the recruitment of the director of education and skills. The post will be re-advertised and we will keep you updated.

Last week Terence, along with other directors for children’s services from around England, met with the children’s minister Nadhim Zahawi and civil servants to discuss the Government’s plans for schools, education and social care. It was a very useful and informative meeting.

We’re are big advocates of the coaching programme and we’re pleased to say there is an opportunity for six staff to become trained coaches within the council coaching pool. This will involve undertaking the ILM Level 5 qualification in coaching and mentoring and committing to coach council staff in addition to your current role. For further information and an application form please see Becoming a Coach on grow. The closing date for applications is Monday 19 February 2018. It’s a great opportunity, and for both the coach and those who are coached it’s very worthwhile. 

Having just been through an Ofsted inspection that focused on our special educational needs & disabilities services (SEND), we’re expecting the draft letter from Ofsted in the next couple of weeks with the initial feedback. Starting next week another inspection is taking place, and a different area of our work will be looked at. Over the next 14 weeks the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will be reviewing the health and adult social care system in Wiltshire. CQC will send a team to visit us on two occasions and they will also be collecting an extensive amount of data and information as part of the process. It gives an opportunity for us and our health partners to show how effective our system is and how we are integrating these services. 

As we always say, the feedback helps us to make improvements to the services we provide.

More next week.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Strategic partnerships and the next phase of the Clean Up Wilts campaign

Hello,

The budget proposals, published just over a week ago, are currently being considered by members. Yesterday Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee discussed the proposals and will re-convene this week on Friday (9 February) to consider amendments put forward by opposition groups. Cabinet met this morning and the proposed budget and new Commercial Strategy were the main items discussed. Having taken into account the feedback from yesterday’s overview and scrutiny meeting, cabinet agreed that the proposals go forward to Full Council for its consideration on Tuesday, 20 February. The announcement from Government on the Revenue Support Grant and what we will be allocated is expected this week. We can then assess the impact, if there is any, on the budget proposals for next year.

Thank you to everyone who assisted with the joint Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspection of Wiltshire’s special education needs and / or disability (SEND) arrangements last week. Our thanks again to all of you who demonstrated your responsiveness and commitment to work together to deliver what was needed.

Well done to everyone who was involved in our bid for more than £8.5m from the Government to support the construction of the Yarnbrook West Ashton Relief Road which will help deliver 2,600 new homes in the area. Last week we found out we’d been successful in securing this funding, which will pay for the additional ecological protection, design and construction costs. This includes improvements to the A350 road layout adjacent to the site. The funding will enable the delivery of the strategic housing allocation in this area.

This week consultation on proposals for the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down (Stonehenge Scheme) will be launched. This is a major milestone and another step closer to a scheme which aims to protect the World Heritage Site and alleviate the traffic issues on this major arterial route and in local communities. We are working closely with Highways England and our partners to deliver this major project.

On the theme of partners, our strategic partnership with the police is a really important one, particularly given our close working and shared space. Last week we met with the police senior management team to discuss how we can further develop our joint working. It was a very wide ranging meeting which included discussion about high frequency contacts, our transformation programmes, shared space, safeguarding, budgets, future plans, and also how we can collectively celebrate our success as we move forwards.

It’s always good to get recognition for a job well done. We heard at the end of last week that our community hubs programme has been shortlisted for a Public Finance Innovation Award in the community engagement category. Well done to the team involved – we’ll find out whether we win towards the end of April. And, later this week we’re a finalist at the Keep Britain Tidy Awards following our successful community litter picks as part of the Great British Spring Clean. Fingers crossed…

Next week phase 2 of our Clean up Wilts campaign launches with roadshows in Tidworth, Salisbury (two roadshows), Trowbridge, Chippenham and Devizes.

This phase focuses on encouraging people to stop dropping litter; particularly from their vehicle, to switch to reusable materials, to recycle more, and to sign up to join this year’s community litter picks as part of the Great British Spring Clean. The campaign aims to reduce the cost to collect this litter – currently we spend £2.5 million picking up rubbish. Given the pressures and demands on our budget this money could be better allocated to support vital services. The campaign is currently supported by Landmarc, Spire FM, McDonald's and Salisbury City Council and Idverde. It is hoped more businesses will get involved and help us to combat this issue that has a detrimental impact on the environment and wildlife, and our budget.


Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Next year's budget proposals and this week’s joint Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspection

Hello,

This week got off to a really busy start with the joint Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection, the publication of the budget papers, and a cabinet meeting.

Ofsted and the CQC are conducting an inspection of the local area’s Special Education Needs and / or Disability (SEND) arrangements. The inspection team arrived at County Hall yesterday and will be with us until Friday. The inspectors will be visiting a number of sites, including schools and children’s centres, and also looking at health provision, meeting with parents, carers and children and young people as well as council and the clinical commissioning group senior leaders and staff. As we’ve said, these inspections are really important because they help us to improve our service and focus on areas where we need to do things differently, as well providing acknowledgement of where we are doing well.

As you’ll have seen, the proposals for next year’s budget have been published. A briefing for councillors takes place later today after the cabinet meeting, and a briefing for local media was held yesterday morning. In case you haven’t seen our budget briefing to staff, you can read it here.

At our meeting with cabinet members yesterday we discussed the new way of delivering services to schools. Right Choice... for your school, is the new name for our traded service and website which provides a single market place for all schools to view and purchase the products and services they need. It is being launched at engagement events with headteachers and business managers from all Wiltshire schools today and next week. This is a big change – all services to schools will be traded through a new platform from March 2018. Take a look at the website.

At today’s cabinet meeting the car parking strategy, school capital programme, school admissions policies, and a progress report on the adoption service, were discussed. Cabinet will also meet again next week with the focus being on next year’s budget. Our thanks go to Cllr Chuck Berry for his hard work as cabinet member for housing and economic development. He has chosen to stand down, so the responsibility for housing will be taken on by Cllr Richard Clewer and Baroness Scott will lead on economic development.

Last week we interviewed for the two director adult care posts for access and reablement and continued support and we are pleased to update that Emma Legg has been appointed as director adult care, access and reablement. Emma has been acting up into this role and we are delighted that we have been able to appoint her permanently. We have also taken steps to appoint to the role of director adult care, continued support and we hope to update you on progress with this soon.

This week we will be interviewing for the Children’s and Adult commissioning role. The second tier structure implementation is almost complete and we are looking forward to having the director posts in place and working together to deliver the programmes of work aligned to the business plan that were set out in yesterday’s budget briefing update.

Today Wiltshire welcomed HRH the Duchess of Cornwall to officially open St Mary’s C.E. School in Marlborough, which was built as part of the Government's Priority Schools Building Programme, with a contribution from us.

Finally, you can see our latest highlights presentation here.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Congratulations to Jane on making the LGC top 100 'power list'

Hello,

Yesterday Terence received the call from OFSTED and the Care Quality Commission, who informed him that they will be conducting an inspection of Wiltshire’s Special Education Needs and / or Disability (SEND) arrangements. The inspection will run from Monday 29 January to Friday 2 February. These inspections are a great opportunity for us to showcase all of the positive work we do with children, young people, and their families in Wiltshire. We’ll keep you updated on the visit and feedback from the inspection team.

This week, we are working with directors to finalise the budget proposals for 2018/19, we need to set out the timescales for delivering proposed savings, and the projected income. The final proposals will be published on Friday in readiness for the cabinet meeting on 7 February. Briefings for elected members and the media are scheduled for early next week ahead of formal discussions at Overview and Scrutiny, Cabinet, and finally Full Council on 20 February.

Last week we held the first meeting of the year with managers and heads of service in which we discussed our priorities for the year ahead, including the transformation programmes in children’s and adults’ services. We also discussed the boundary review, which is progressing this week, with a meeting of the Electoral Review Committee. The review is an important piece of work which is considering the total number of councillors; as well as the number and boundaries of electoral divisions within the council.

As you know, last week we interviewed for the post of director of education and skills, and we are awaiting confirmation following an offer of appointment. This week, tier 2 director recruitment continues, we will be interviewing for two adult care directors, and next week we will interview for the commissioning role.

Recruitment for the remaining corporate director post (the joint role with the clinical commissioning group) is being progressed.

In case you didn’t see it, Jane Scott was on BBC Sunday Politics West. The main focus was the changing role of libraries and how, with the support of 800+ volunteers, we are helping to protect this service and combat the growing issues around isolation and loneliness. Calne Community Hub and Library and its Open Access system were featured. If you missed it, the section can be accessed here. If you did watch the programme and saw the section on air quality, you may be interested to know that we are reviewing our policy. While this is a national issue, and one where there is no easy and accessible solution, we need to make sure that we, and our local communities, take action to make the air we breathe as clean as possible.

Last week, Jane was voted the 39^th most influential person in the public sector in the Local Government Chronicle’s latest Top 100 ‘power list’. This accolade is based on the council’s achievements and transformation programmes since it became a unitary in 2009. Jane said this recognition was not just an honour for her personally, but also for her cabinet and council staff who work so hard for the people of Wiltshire.

On the theme of recognition – this Thursday we will be presenting the final quarter Achieving Excellence Awards from 2017. This ceremony will include the regular team and individual awards and the individual and team ‘winner of winners’ for 2017 following your votes. We will publish all the winners on the Wire this Friday.

Finally, you can see our latest highlights presentation here.

Alistair, Carlton, and Terence

Current focus on recruitment and next year's budget

Hello,

As you may be aware our focus is currently predominantly on recruitment and next year’s budget setting.

Last week interviews for commercial and housing, and economic development and planning director’s posts were held. We were delighted that Tim Martienssen has been appointed as director of economic development and planning. Tim has been acting up into this role, and has now taken it on permanently with immediate effect.  Unfortunately, the appointment committee did not appoint to the commercial and housing role as it did not consider that the applicants were suitable. The position will be reviewed.

This week interviews for the director of education and skills, will be held and interviews for positions in adult social care and commissioning will follow next week. We will keep you updated on the outcome of these interviews. We will be pleased when all the roles are filled and we can work together as a new team to deliver the business plan and the big change programmes.

As we mentioned our other key focus right now is next year’s budget and we continue to work closely with cabinet members on the proposals for delivering the £25m of savings required and for meeting the increasing demand in some service areas. This is never an easy task and we will be a position to share these proposals with you soon, as they will be published by 29 January, in readiness for the cabinet meeting on 6 February. The final decision will be made by Full Council on 20 February.

Today we will be holding our first meeting of 2018 with managers and heads of service. We have decided to focus on a number of key areas, beginning with our priorities for this year, and the progress being made on some of our key transformation programmes – adult social care, and families and children.

At the end of last year we heard that our community hubs programme had been shortlisted in the Best Service Delivery Model category for the LGC Awards 2018. As part of the judging process, yesterday deputy leader John Thomson and Laurie Bell, director communities and communication, were invited to London to present to a panel of four chief executives what we have achieved and why Wiltshire should win the award. Their presentation focused on how visionary we have been, our innovative approach to community working, and how we are adopting a business-like approach to minimise the need for subsiding these facilities in the future. We’ll find out in mid-March whether they did enough to convince the panel!

You can see the latest highlights presentation here. 

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

2018 - a year of opportunity and delivery

Welcome back and happy New Year for 2018!

We hope you all managed to enjoy a well-earned break over the festive period and are ready for the New Year. Our thanks go to those staff who did a great job managing the impact of the extreme weather over the last couple of weeks.

As we said in our pre-Christmas blog, 2018 promises to be a year of opportunity and delivery and we’re pleased that interviews for the vacant director posts for economic development and planning, and commercial and housing are underway this week.

Over the next few weeks the interviews for the two adult social care directors; continued support, and access and reablement, as well as directors for commissioning, and education and skills will also take place.

We hope to appoint to these roles by early next month, but in the meantime, the following temporary arrangements have been put in place; 

• Graham Wilkin – interim statutory director, Adult Social Services (DASS)

• Emma Legg – acting director, adult social care 

• Evelyn Wheeler – interim director, commissioning 

• Alan Stubbersfield – interim director, skills and education

Our first meeting of the year with cabinet members took place on Monday. We discussed the cabinet meetings scheduled for 30 January and 6 February and the agenda items which include feedback on the consultation on the local transport plan and next year’s budget. 

As we previously updated, next year we need to find around £25m in savings to meet increasing demand in some services. On Monday we ran through proposals to deliver these savings. Whilst most of these have been accepted, more detail is required for some of the proposals put forward.

As you may have heard, the government has agreed that councils can now increase council tax by up to 3% without a referendum. The maximum used to be 2%, and the extra 1% could generate around £2.4m for the council, should members agree to this increase.

In terms of what happens next on the budget - all directors and heads of service will be sent base budgets to review shortly. The papers setting out the budget proposals will be published on 29 January, ahead of the cabinet discussion on 6 February, and a decision by full council on 20 February.

That might sound like a long process – but the reality is that when setting the budget there needs to be an appropriate level of scrutiny given the size of our budget and scale of services we deliver.

Whilst there is a lot of focus on next year’s budget, we still need to manage this year’s budget to ensure that it is balanced and that we continue to minimise any potential overspend. We are encouraging all managers to be vigilant in their approach to any recruitment and spend from now until April and to recognise that by being diligent we can achieve a balanced outcome.

This Friday we are hosting a visit from Gloucester City Council, that is keen to look at how we work, with a particular focus on our hubs and our programme of transformation following the move to unitary. With the budget challenges and service demands facing local authorities several have visited to look at rationalisation of property, flexible working and community working.

Finally, the EPIC staff engagement team launched the opportunity to deliver an EPIC Xmas impression. More than 1,000 impressions were sent over the Christmas period – an incredible response! We encourage you to make use of impressions to recognise and thank your colleagues for their work. If you haven’t sent one yet, EPIC has now launched new impressions focused on empowerment, innovation and collaboration. You can find out more about impressions here.

And the EPIC team is still looking for more volunteers, the deadline for applications is today. You can apply here.

Finally, the recent highlights are on the intranet.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Reflecting on a busy 2017 and looking ahead to 2018

Hello,

We can hardly believe it’s almost Christmas and we fully recognise that it’s time for a well-earned break to recharge and have some downtime.

Yesterday we held the last of this year’s regular weekly meetings with cabinet members. We approved the launch of a new homelessness campaign; called ‘Real Change Wiltshire’. The campaign aims to raise awareness that not all beggars are homeless and that more useful and sustainable help can be given through charities and outreach workers – rather than donating cash on the street.

It also aims to make sure that those people that can help a rough sleeper and provide the support that they need are better publicised so that members of the public can contact them directly; particularly at this time of the year when the temperatures drop and its Christmas.

We think this is a really positive campaign – and launching it at this time of year, when life can be really tough for some, is the right time.

We also discussed with cabinet the budget meetings held last week with all of the directors to further discuss plans to find £30m of savings in 2018-19. The good news is we’re continuing to reduce the gap, but there is more work to be done to agree the timings of some of the proposed saving and how they will be implemented. This will enable us to ascertain whether we can achieve a full year savings from the proposals or a partial saving.

We are still awaiting the funding announcement from Government, which is expected this week - once we have this we can assess our current position and the savings required. We will update on this in the New Year. 

At yesterday’s corporate leadership team meeting we discussed the recent notice from the Care Quality Commission informing us that there will be a review of the whole system of health and social care in Wiltshire early next year. This will be a wide-ranging and thorough review which will impact not just on us, but also our key partners in the clinical commissioning group, our three acute hospital trusts, and Wiltshire Health and Care, the partnership focused on delivering improved community services and enabling people to live independent lives for as long as possible.

Local system reviews look at how people move between health and social care, examining how delayed transfers of care occur and how these are managed, with a particular focus on people over 65 years old. The review will also include an assessment of commissioning across health and social care and the governance systems and processes in place in respect of the management of resources.

As always with this kind of scrutiny, we know that the review will look at what is working well but what is really important is that it highlights areas for improvements. This is critical for us in terms of how we make the integration of health and social care a reality. Clearly there will be a lot of work to be done to prepare for this and we will update you further when we have more information.

You can see our latest highlights presentation on the intranet.

Finally, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It’s been another really busy year and we’ve achieved a great deal as an organisation which is down to your hard work and contribution.

Our thanks go to those of you who will be working or on call over the festive period. Hopefully you will all have a chance to unwind and have a well-earned rest at some point.

We are all looking forward to 2018 and an exciting year of opportunity and delivery.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Keeping Wiltshire safe

This week’s blog has to start with a huge thank you to all of the teams who have been dealing with the impact of the most extreme cold weather that Wiltshire – along with many other parts of the country – has seen over the last few years.

Our gritters have travelled more than 13,000km, spreading 830 tonnes of salt across the county’s road network to keep people moving. All primary and secondary routes across the county have been treated, and were treated again from 6pm on Monday night. We will continue to monitor primary and secondary routes and treat where required. Please make sure you all take care on the roads, particularly on minor roads which are untreated.

It is a real team effort to keep Wiltshire safe during the very cold weather – it’s not just about salting roads – but, it’s also about ensuring the safety of the vulnerable, particularly those who may be sleeping rough. Our thanks to everyone who has been, and continues to be, involved and let’s hope it warms up again very soon!

Yesterday we met with cabinet members ahead of a very busy cabinet meeting today. We discussed the agenda and the various reports as well as the highlights from last week, which you can see on the intranet. 

We are making progress implementing the senior management structure, and our congratulations go to Tracy Daskiewicz who was appointed Director of Public Health following an interview with the Officer Appointments Committee on Friday. Tracy has been acting up into this role and will take it on permanently with immediate effect. We are sure you will join with us in congratulating Tracy and wishing her every success in the role.

We spent yesterday shortlisting for six of the other vacant director roles; commissioning (both children’s and adults), adult social care (two roles), education and skills, housing and commercial development, and economy and planning. We have had a good response to the recent advertisements and there are some really strong candidates. Interviews will take place in the New Year and we’ll keep you updated on the outcome of these interviews.

This week, we continue to work on next year’s budget setting; particularly as we await the Government funding announcement and its impact on us. We have scheduled to meet with directors this Thursday to further review the savings proposals and the opportunities to generate additional income in each service area.

Could we please remind you all, that if you haven’t yet voted for the Achieving Excellence Winner of Winners for 2017 (as shown at the recent staff forums) please cast your vote. The video which was can be found on the intranet along with details of how to vote. We are still finalising the answers to all your staff forum questions – there were 358 questions in total – and, as we promised we will answer each one and publish them all. Given there were so many this is taking some time, so please bear with us.

Finally, we wanted to talk about Lorraine Brown, who sadly lost her son Alex in a motor bike accident on 10 August this year. Alex was only 21 years old. Since the accident planning and building control team members have been fund raising in his honor and have so far managed to raise over £2,000 for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance, which tried to save Alex. The team has raised this money through cake sales, raffles and completing the Monster Race in September (as pictured).

More next week, just ahead of the Christmas break.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Next year's budget and looking ahead to cabinet

Hello,

A big update this week reflecting the volume and diversity of work that’s being delivered.

Yesterday started with our regular meeting with cabinet members and a look back at another busy week. You can see the highlights presentation here.

Cabinet members were particularly interested and impressed with staff that volunteered to take part in a litter pick around Trowbridge – in their lunch break – as part of the Clean Up Wilts campaign. The idea was generated through EPIC and a huge well done to everyone who got involved and helped collect 13 bags of rubbish in just an hour. Future litter picks are being scheduled in Chippenham and Salisbury and the members have asked if they can also participate and do their bit to clean up hot spots and improve the county.

Last week we spent time focusing on next year’s budget (2018/19) and we met with directors and heads of service to discuss plans and ideas for potential savings and ways of generating more income too. We then met with cabinet to share the outcome of these meetings and the position is now a lot clearer – as it stands we need to find around £30m of savings next year – and, so far we have identified just over £25m - with around £4.4m still to find. We’ll know more following the funding announcement from Government next week (expected on 11 December) and the amount of savings that still need to be found. We will present our final position on the savings and income by 8 January to be discussed and considered by Full Council in February.

It’s not just about next year’s budget – we are also analysing what we need to do to ensure we come in on budget this year – which is critical so that we don’t have to find even more savings next year. We know that if we take no management action, we are projecting a potential overspend of £6m, and Directors continue to work together and with their services on actions to address this and balance the budget.

With the onset of winter and a definite chill in the air at the moment it’s important we consider help for rough sleepers. We always provide emergency provisions for anyone sleeping rough during severe weather and overnight accommodation for those who need it. We are fortunate that the number of rough sleepers in Wiltshire is low, but it is still an issue for us and we will continue to work with partners to do what we can and look at whether we are doing enough.

Another project which you will be hearing a lot about over the next four years is the boundary review, which is now underway, at some pace. The review will consider the total number of elected members on the council, and then review the numbers and boundaries of electoral divisions within the authority boundary. There is a huge amount to do in a tight timeline with lots of information required in the preliminary stage, including housing development numbers and forecasts on the future size of the electorate. Once we have gathered the required information, the council will put forward its view on the future size of the council from 2021 onwards.

Later this week there will be an information session for staff interested in taking part in the new Leadership and Management programme which we announced at the staff engagement forums. Using the apprenticeship levy we are now able to offer qualifications to staff, supporting us with succession planning and ensuring we have a resilient workforce with all the skills needed for the challenges the public sector faces in the future. The 20% off-the-job training requirement of apprenticeships is the biggest barrier for employers nationally, however we are ensuring that the training providers we procure can offer this in a way that works for us as an organisation. To find out more about the programme, please visit grow.

Looking ahead, cabinet meets next Tuesday and it’s a busy meeting with some big items being discussed, including the council’s overall performance, the council tax base, schools funding for next year, our strategy for school places up to 2022, our carers’ strategy, an update on health and social care integration, a report on leisure provision, and an update on the community campus programme.

Finally, we’re sorry to announce that Alison Elliott will be leaving us. Alison has had a huge impact spearheading the transformation of adult social care and taking on a wider brief as an interim corporate director over the last few months and we will announce shortly the arrangements following her departure. Alison is sadly leaving due to personal circumstances and our thoughts are with her and her family at this difficult time.

Alistair, Carlton and Terence

Staff engagement forums come to an end and a new interim director of education and skills

This week we are meeting with each of the directors to talk through the financial pressures and challenges in the services that they cover to consider where savings and additional income can be delivered next year. It’s important that we all have a clear understanding of the pressures and opportunities across the council as we need to find around £30 million for 2018/19. Whilst this won’t be easy – it’s about looking at new ways to deliver and every possible avenue to increase income. We will be discussing the outcome of these meetings with cabinet members on Thursday to agree which proposals we take forward and develop further.

As we discussed at the recent staff engagement forums, we’re keen for the work on the budget to be as collaborative as possible. No-one knows the services better than those of you who deliver them and it’s good to get a fresh perspective on the issues that we face and to hear new ideas that will help to deliver what’s required.

In terms of the national financial picture, the Chancellor delivered his budget last week and we should hear on 11 December the financial settlement that will be getting from government for next year. We know the broad picture but need the details to clarify the savings that need to be made. Whilst we know the pressures - we need to focus on how we make the best use of the money we do have, rather than what we haven’t.

We completed this year’s annual staff engagement forums in Chippenham and Salisbury last week and we would like to extend our thanks to all of you who came along. We enjoyed seeing you and it really gave us a sense of the mood of the organisation. As with any big organisation we know there’s need for improvement in some areas, but overall we were hugely encouraged and think we’re in a good place as we work towards achieving what we have set out in the business plan.

The questions and feedback received are being collated as we write this and will be on The Wire as soon as we’ve had a chance to go through them and provide answers to all of them. As a leadership team we heard that it’s important we are as visible and more accessible. We will look at the possibility of visiting the hubs more often.

Those who attended the forums will have seen the highlights of 2017 video touching on some of our many achievements so far this year. It is testament to all of you that tough decisions were made in deciding what to include and leave out in the final cut. We could have put together a video that was twice the length and that’s a good problem to have. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here.

As well as the annual highlights, every Monday we present a round-up of council-related activity from the previous week to cabinet members at our regular meeting. As you know, things move at quite a pace so we find it beneficial to take some time out to talk about some of the work we’re doing and update cabinet on the vast number of issues, meetings, events and milestones that happen on a weekly basis. We thought that you might also find it interesting so we have published the presentation on The Wire and will continue to do so weekly. This week’s update included the Maltings redevelopment in Salisbury, the review of electoral services and a speech Baroness Scott made to the Town and Country Planning Association - to name just three.

The Association of Electoral Administrators’ review of our election services focused on performance, risk, resourcing, resilience, registration and legislative compliance and interviews with teams who work closely with elections, including communications, customer services and IT. Thanks to all who were involved. Take a look here at all of last week’s highlights and achievements.

Protecting the vulnerable is our top priority and one of the challenges we face is an ever-increasing aging population and making sure there are services in place to support them. The impact of elderly people on the emergency services was the topic of last night’s ‘999 – What’s Your Emergency?’ episode on Channel 4. Whatever you think about how the issue was portrayed in the programme, protecting the vulnerable is key to not just us but all our public sector partners. More people are living for longer and whilst that’s a good thing, last night’s programme did highlight the issues that comes with ageing.

Today the Boundary Review gets started with a series of briefings for officers and members taking place. The review will look at the make-up of electoral wards across the county and could well lead to some wide-ranging changes ahead of the next local election. More on this issue will follow over the next few weeks and months.

We are pleased to confirm that this week Alan Stubbersfield joined us as the interim director education and skills. Getting a fresh perspective and an external view will be beneficial, and we’re looking forward to working with Alan.

Finally, Alison was extremely sorry to miss the staff forums and wanted to let everyone know that the adult social care transformation programme continues at pace.

More next week,

Alison, Alistair, Carlton and Terence 

Staff engagement forum sessions and a new head of electoral services

Hello,

A big thank you to everyone who attended one of the Trowbridge staff engagement forum sessions last week and contributed to what we all thought was a worthwhile and productive day.

This week the forums are in Chippenham and Salisbury and we’re looking forward to seeing you there and hearing your views. There are still a few spaces available so please book on if you haven’t already. And, please do come ready with your questions as we want the sessions to be as interactive and informative as possible.

We’re collating all your questions and will publish the answers following all the sessions. So far the questions range from subjects such as the budget, the savings we need to make, staff parking and staff development. What’s clear is there’s a real passion for the job amongst you and that’s been great to see.

We certainly didn’t have a quiet end to the week as following the engagement forums we spent Friday with around 100 representatives from many of the town and parish councils in Wiltshire. They are vital partners in the work we do and we wanted to take some time to talk with them and really establish a positive way of working going forward, which given the budget pressures we have will benefit us all. We want to do more locally and the parish and town councils will be key to that. It was a really successful event and we’re sure there will be more like it to come to really help us capitalise on the momentum we have now built.  

While on the subject of budget pressures, we await with keen interest Wednesday’s budget delivered by the chancellor. We’re not expecting many surprises, and our sound financial management means that we are ready to manage any that may come our way. We’ll take some time to sift through the detail to establish how it will affect us. This week we’re doing some planning and preparation work to focus on our budget as next week we’re hosting star chambers to talk to managers and cabinet members about possible savings and where they consider their services can be done differently. We’re keen to get a fresh perspective and we’re sure that this new approach will be productive.

Today and yesterday Terence and Alistair attended the County Councils Network (CCN) Conference alongside Jane. It’s always good to network with local authority colleagues and find out how the issues we collectively face can be tackled. Two of the themes this year are devolution and ‘super councils’. Jane, as the CCN Reform Spokeswoman delivered an introduction piece based on the Wiltshire experience to drive significant change and combine local authorities to the benefit of local residents and communities. It was a think piece to encourage debate and change.

The next cabinet meeting takes place in a few weeks and yesterday CLT discussed the agenda for the meeting. There is a lot for members to discuss and determine including the school places strategy, carers strategy, an update on the campus programme and an interim proposal for leisure provision.

We’re pleased to announce that Caroline Rudland has been appointed as our new head of electoral services, replacing John Watling who retired earlier this year. John left behind some big shoes to fill but Caroline is more than capable and brings with her a wealth of experience and lots of new and exciting ideas on how she sees this service developing. We’re looking forward to working with her.

Finally, we just want to ask you to take a few minutes to fill out the Health and Wellbeing Staff Survey. The results of the confidential survey help shape the way that resources are used to help support your health and wellbeing in the workplace. That’s obviously important enough, but you could also win yourself some vouchers so it’s definitely worth filling it out.

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing some of you tomorrow and Thursday.

Alison, Alistair, Carlton and Terence