Encouraging a culture of good information management

Hello,

As an organisation, we have to care about the security of our information. There are any number of legal reasons to do this, but in its simplest form, it comes down to being the guardians of the information we keep and holding the trust of both the public, our staff and the organisations and individuals that we do business with.

In my role as Senior Information Risk Officer (SIRO), I am responsible for leading and encouraging a culture of good information management, owning the overall information risk policy and to understand where the lessons can be learned when there are information incidents. The current Information Governance agenda is doing much to drive that message out to everyone but I would like to highlight a key issue for everyone.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of data incidents where information has been shared and stored inappropriately.  It is everybody’s responsibility to ensure that they take steps to ensure that the information they are working with or sharing is being done in a secure way. 
Sensitive documents and personal data should be only be stored on drives where access is restricted to the appropriate people and should never be stored on the hard drives in laptops.

Emails are a method of communication that has become common place in a 21st century working environment.  Onward transmission of emails has brought about a complacency in terms of assuming that everything contained within that email thread needs to be shared. This is usually not the case.

It is therefore good working practice to remember the following:

• If you are contacting someone for the first time, especially if it is outside of our organisation, send a test message to establish you have the right person and refrain from sending or saying anything confidential until you have ensured you have the right person.
• Use council email accounts only for work-related activities.
• If you are forwarding emails, check through to see if there is any personal information contained within the thread and, if there is, only include it if the recipient should have that information.
• If you are replying to an email, do not automatically “reply to all”. Consider who has been sent or cc’d into the message and whether the information needs to be shared with all those included.
• If you are in regular contact with an external agency or person, ensure there is an established data sharing agreement in place.
• Do not email any council data, whether sensitive or not to a personal email address
• Do not open emails from unknown external senders or click on suspicious links within emails.

If you want any further information or assistance please email informationgovernance@wiltshire.gov.uk 

Thanks for your help out on this important topic.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton

Great to see our #EPIC staff grow together

This week saw the launch of #EPIC impressions. The staff engagement group #EPIC launched ‘impressions’, a new way of recognising staff for a job well done. Every impression left in GROW is emailed to line managers and reported back as part of the appraisal process to ensure maximum visibility. More than 400 impressions were left within the first two days this week, with all teams across the council involved. The initiative is one of a number of positive changes being introduced by the #EPIC group which was set up following feedback at last year’s staff engagement forums and in the staff survey which followed. I enjoyed using our GROW system this week to say thank you to a number of staff.

Also this week has seen us supporting Private Fostering Week, which aims to reduce the number of children in un-notified private fostering arrangements. Along with media work, a stand in the Atrium helped to raise awareness, information was also sent to schools and churches to share with their communities.

Some good news about adoption in the county. The number of children in care being placed with adoption families has risen, and it has taken less time to place them. The time between receiving court authority to place a child and finding a match was 158 days in Wiltshire from 2013-2016; the national average was 226 days. Well done to Martin Davis, head of placement services, and his team.

For those of you about to embark on your holidays, have a great time and get some well-deserved rest.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton

A long day – #General Election 2017

Today is a long day for many of us – more than 28 hours for some, and I just wanted to say good luck and thank you for your support today, tonight and tomorrow. More than 1,000 of you are working today on the election and many others are covering the day job to continue to deliver our services. 

My special thanks to the election team, customer services, communications and the community engagement managers whom have all worked tirelessly for weeks to make today go well and enable democracy to thrive in Wiltshire.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter.

Carlton

A huge thank you to all that delivered the election

I’ll start by saying a massive thank you to the Elections team, Customer Services team and everybody who helped on the local election last week. It was a big effort and we delivered the election well. The Wiltshire local election (405 elections on the same day) is one of, if not the largest in the country. It was a long day, and some of us didn’t finish until well after 2am on the Friday. And then a further 12 hours verifying and counting during Friday. Thank you all so much for your efforts. This week we started the induction programme for all elected members which is going well.

On Tuesday I introduced one of a series of staff workshops being held to mark Mental Health Awareness Week. I’m sure many of you will have seen the recent media coverage of Princes William and Harry talking about their own mental health experiences. The workshops and the other campaign material which you may have seen has encouraged all of us to challenge the negative  connotations often applied to mental health sufferers. Everyone, regardless of age, gender or post,  is susceptible to periods of poor mental health, just as we all are to poor physical health, and we need to treat the prevention and treatment of both equally. 

The Corporate Leadership Team this week signed a pledge to end any mental health discrimination in the workplace. Having poor mental health will not be viewed as a personal weakness; will not adversely affect your job security or your career opportunity; and will not be treated any less supportively than any form of poor physical health. I’m delighted that already well over 400 members of staff have also made a personal pledge to help tackle the stigma. You can add your name to the pledge here.

We can all take some general steps towards positive mental health by adopting some simple rules at work. Try to leave work on time when you can; always make sure you take a proper lunch or rest break; and most importantly try to make sure you find the time to fit in those things important to you outside of work. I try not to check or worry about non-urgent work matters outside of working hours and I hope you don’t feel you need to either. Frankly, I’d rather be out on my bike, it’s my own personal favourite stress-busting technique! 

We’re supporting International Coaching Week with a series of Coaching Information Events at the 3 main hubs. Some of our amazing coaches will be on hand to explain the many benefits of 1 to 1 coaching, which is available to all staff and managers. These informal, drop-by sessions are an excellent opportunity to talk to a coach and discover how coaching can support your personal development in so many areas like confidence-building, communication, improving working relationships, coping with change, decision-making, objective-setting, leadership, resilience and much more. If you’re unable to attend an information event, but would like to find out more about being coached, contact amanda.collyer@wiltshire.gov.uk

Coaching Information Events: drop in or drop by

Date	Time	Where	Site
17 May	9:30am - 3:30pm	Atrium	County Hall
18 May	9:30am - 3:30pm	Atrium	County Hall
17 May	2pm - 3pm	Cockerell room	Bourne Hill
19 May	10am - 11am	Langley room	Monkton Park

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton

Less than a week to go

This time next week we will be counting the votes in the four counting centres across the county. First unitary results should start to be announced at around noon with the final results known by around 3pm. You’ll be able to follow these on the web, our twitter account or BBC Wiltshire. Then we’ll move onto the town and parish counting and results which should all be declared by around 5pm. All very exciting, if like me you’re a bit of an election junky. With the simultaneous announcement of the General Election, the election team and many other staff are working flat out. Long 12 hour plus days, most weekends and the bank holidays too. Tomorrow we’re packing the ballot boxes for collection by the presiding officers and poll clerks next week. I would like to thank you all for your commitment and selflessness in supporting this important work. 

In preparation for the Monday following the election, Carolyn and I have alternative draft business plans written (depending on who wins the election) for the new executive. This is together with a full programme of cabinet decisions and supporting papers that need to be taken to continue our work, development of the organisation and the services it delivers along with the major policy decisions that need to be taken affecting the county. The next four years are going to be very challenging for local government across the country but we’re well positioned to continue our journey of high performance service delivery, innovation, change and focusing on the priorities of the individuals, families, communities and businesses across Wiltshire.

Now back to the election… 33,000 postal votes received, opened, scanned and processed so far and they’re coming in at a rate of around 3,500 per day.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton