Friday 31 July 2009

My theme for this blog is connecting with our customers, citizens and communities. This is vital for any organisation, be it in the public or private sector. Organisations which don't connect become irrelevant. Irrelevant organisation fail.

This week started with a full meeting of the Extended Leadership Team (ELT) - the corporate and service directors. We had a morning focusing on the new Corporate Plan which we will be drafting and developing with elected members over the autumn. This plan will describe our priorities for the next four years and what we will be working on to turn the our vision and goals into tangible outcomes for the people and communities in Wiltshire.

We are seeking to move away from the traditional service based approach to this work - that is each service coming up with hundreds of priorities and initiatives. This traditional complexity causes many problems - not least that we end up working on hundreds of separate initiatives rather than focusing on doing a few things very well. We are seeking to structure the plans not around services but around themes that relate to the people we are here to serve. These themes might be; Myself, My family, My community, My place. If we start thinking about delivering outcomes within these themes we stand a much better chance of connecting with our customers, citizens and communities moving forward. More on this to come.

I met with some elected members from the Warminster area board plus Ian Brown, Head of Service Amenity & Countryside and Heather Abernethy the town clerk to discuss and agree a way forward on some priority areas for the town. This was exciting as it demonstrated to me the potential power of the area boards to get things done quickly by connecting us with our communities to make a difference.

I'm spending all day today out on the road with the Wiltshire Employment Support Team - Samantha Buchanan and Graham Logan, part of the Department of Community Services. This service enables people with learning difficulties amongst others to seek, obtain and maintain work - a real demonstration that we are involved with lives not just services. I'll tell you all about what I learn next week.

Have a good weekend and talk again soon.

Carlton