Thursday 26 November 2009

Throughout the team last Friday, we held a host of events to raise money for Children in Need. I'm delighted to say that we raised a whopping £2,362.86p for the charity. This is a brilliant performance by the whole team and especially those that gave up their time and much effort to bake cakes, staff the stalls and generally get involved with all the doing. Well done to all.

I spent yesterday afternoon at Monkton Park with the Building Control team. It was a good opportunity for me to find out what they do and generally learn a lot more about their role. We also spent some time talking about the forthcoming harmonisation programme - the work to harmonise the pay and terms and conditions of all our staff. There are lots of rumours about this subject and what it may mean for individuals. I was able to stress that no decisions have been made yet, but that Cabinet this week have agreed the work plan to negotiate a collective agreement with the trade unions. More on this subject as the plans are developed.

This week has seen more staff engagement presentations for the Workplace Transformation Programme - this week in Trowbridge for about 300 plus staff. These sessions are going well and we are identifying many issues and worries that staff are expressing that we can then build into the programme.

I am in London tomorrow to meet with five other Corporate Directors from unitaries across the country. We will be sharing our collective learning and experiences on subjects such as harmonisation, inspection, culture change, programme management and leadership. These sessions really get me thinking and are always a source of new ideas to bring to our organisation.

Speak again next week. Have a great weekend.

Carlton