Thursday 10 December 2009

This week Cabinet and CLT met for a full day together. We spent time revisiting the members' vision and their priorities for the next three years. We looked at the external constraints that we all face, the recession and the impact on public sector spending and considered how we factor these into our plans for the political term of the council. More importantly we explored how we will work together, in terms of the time that we need to spend together and also the key leadership issues around setting the right culture, communication, trust and us being clear about our values. It was good to spend some quality time together and we committed to repeating this regularly.

Today John Noeken, Resources Portfolio Holder and I are welcoming Cornwall Council to Trowbridge. Key Cabinet and Scrutiny members, including their leader are visiting us to understand and see how we have delivered Shared Services and SAP coupled with the cost reductions that we have achieved. It's always good to meet other councils and show case what we have achieved - much as we did a few years ago when we visited others who had already delivered their change programmes. The reason they are visiting us is down to all of you and the incredible change that you have all delivered this year.

We have been working this week on preparing a balanced budget for members. We are almost balanced, and in the next few weeks, we should be complete for 20010-11. The Chancellor's Pre-Budget Statement (PBS) yesterday echoed many of the actions that Finance have been predicting in the Medium Term Financial Strategy, so there were no real surprises for us in terms of the impact on our finances. The news of rises in National Insurance and the cap on public sector pay was expected but will hit individuals hard!

Thanks for reading and talk again next week.

Carlton