Well here we are - Christmas is only 5 sleeps away and we're nearly at the end of 2010 as well.
What a year it's been; challenging, frenetic, speedy and tricky don't begin to summarise it. Overall though we've achieved a great deal. When I look back over our objectives for 2010 we have collectively delivered on almost everything we set out to achieve. And that is thanks to all of you. Your resilience, tenacity and determination to deliver and succeed are inspirational and make this organisation the best I've ever worked for.
I'd like to thank you for your effort and achievements this year and wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful 2011.
Talk again next year.
All the best,
Carlton
Monday, 20 December 2010
Monday, 13 December 2010
As we reach the end of the year I'm reflecting on what we have achieved in 2010, how we have gone about it and what lays ahead in 2011. For all of you who lead and manage others in teams, I thought you might like my top 10 ways to motivate teams:
1. Let people choose
2. Make it a pleasant place to work
3. Allow staff to work flexibly
4. Consider an internal awards scheme
5. Show an interest
6. Avoid cash incentives
7. Create clear goals...
8. ... and track progress
9. Lead from the front
10. Say thank you
It would be good to hear from you how you think we're doing against these criteria.
And finally, my views about the difference between leaders, managers and administrators:
1. Leaders - "what should we be doing?"
2. Managers - "how should we do it?"
3. Administrators - "why we can't do it?" Only joking...
Thanks for reading and talk again next week when we will have only five sleeps to go before Christmas Day.
Carlton
1. Let people choose
2. Make it a pleasant place to work
3. Allow staff to work flexibly
4. Consider an internal awards scheme
5. Show an interest
6. Avoid cash incentives
7. Create clear goals...
8. ... and track progress
9. Lead from the front
10. Say thank you
It would be good to hear from you how you think we're doing against these criteria.
And finally, my views about the difference between leaders, managers and administrators:
1. Leaders - "what should we be doing?"
2. Managers - "how should we do it?"
3. Administrators - "why we can't do it?" Only joking...
Thanks for reading and talk again next week when we will have only five sleeps to go before Christmas Day.
Carlton
Friday, 3 December 2010
Friday 3 December 2010
Today is a good day. England have bowled out the Aussies for 245 and are 1 without loss at stumps on day 1. Smiles all round. It was a long cold night...
Earlier this week I attended the Scrutiny Management Liaison Committee chaired by Cllr Jeff Osborne. This is the coordinating group for the four formal scrutiny select committees. We discussed and agreed on-going scrutiny arrangements for our procurement, performance and budget work moving forward.
Our procurement programme to identify and deliver £9 million of cash savings in 2011-12 is going well and is on track. We have reviewed our plans and results this week to confirm our confidence in achieving this figure through a combination of re-procurements, direct negotiations with our top suppliers (quick wins) and an additional phase of re-procurements due to commence part way through 11-12. Well done to all those in the team and across the organisation, working so hard to achieve this.
On Wednesday we held an asset management workshop with colleagues from the private sector. It was experimental in nature where we started to look at how assets might be managed in the context of "big society" and increased community engagement. We're not sure where this work will lead but we have to explore new and innovative ways to deliver our work in times of reducing budgets. Exciting stuff and I'll keep you posted on progress.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Earlier this week I attended the Scrutiny Management Liaison Committee chaired by Cllr Jeff Osborne. This is the coordinating group for the four formal scrutiny select committees. We discussed and agreed on-going scrutiny arrangements for our procurement, performance and budget work moving forward.
Our procurement programme to identify and deliver £9 million of cash savings in 2011-12 is going well and is on track. We have reviewed our plans and results this week to confirm our confidence in achieving this figure through a combination of re-procurements, direct negotiations with our top suppliers (quick wins) and an additional phase of re-procurements due to commence part way through 11-12. Well done to all those in the team and across the organisation, working so hard to achieve this.
On Wednesday we held an asset management workshop with colleagues from the private sector. It was experimental in nature where we started to look at how assets might be managed in the context of "big society" and increased community engagement. We're not sure where this work will lead but we have to explore new and innovative ways to deliver our work in times of reducing budgets. Exciting stuff and I'll keep you posted on progress.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 26 November 2010
Friday 26 November 2010
Another busy week and it's really starting to feel like winter now.
This week the Corporate Leadership Team met with Cabinet members to continue work on the Business Plan. We now understand that we will receive our grant settlement detail on December 9, which is when we can start to firm up plans for the 2011-12 budget and just how much we will need to save to set a balanced budget - which is a legal responsibility that we have. At present we are still assuming that the nearly 30% reduction in government grant will be heavily front-loaded into year one, that is next year.
Our work on procurement savings continues quickly. We are coming to the end of the opportunity assessment (OA) phase of the work - essentially the time when we have the detailed negotiation plans for each contract in terms of how we will deliver the £9 million that we need for the 11-12 budget. The teams have been working very hard on this and I thank them all for their efforts.
I met with the Resources reference group this week - 30 front line DOR staff members for a general question and answer session on all things connected to budget, Comprehensive Spending Review, cuts, redundancies and the like. It was good to see so many positive people, despite the tough things we're having to do at the moment. We must do more of these over the coming months to enhance our communication. If you would like to join this group then please contact Jane Gray.
Finally I have had a lot of positive feedback from the DOR Team Day last week in Devizes. Nearly 600 people attended. I particularly enjoyed the green/red card voting on specific questions led by Laurie Bell and her team. I thought the fact that 90%+ of DOR would like to see a cut in their terms and conditions if it meant less job losses was a powerful message to us as leaders. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve this event then please let me know.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
This week the Corporate Leadership Team met with Cabinet members to continue work on the Business Plan. We now understand that we will receive our grant settlement detail on December 9, which is when we can start to firm up plans for the 2011-12 budget and just how much we will need to save to set a balanced budget - which is a legal responsibility that we have. At present we are still assuming that the nearly 30% reduction in government grant will be heavily front-loaded into year one, that is next year.
Our work on procurement savings continues quickly. We are coming to the end of the opportunity assessment (OA) phase of the work - essentially the time when we have the detailed negotiation plans for each contract in terms of how we will deliver the £9 million that we need for the 11-12 budget. The teams have been working very hard on this and I thank them all for their efforts.
I met with the Resources reference group this week - 30 front line DOR staff members for a general question and answer session on all things connected to budget, Comprehensive Spending Review, cuts, redundancies and the like. It was good to see so many positive people, despite the tough things we're having to do at the moment. We must do more of these over the coming months to enhance our communication. If you would like to join this group then please contact Jane Gray.
Finally I have had a lot of positive feedback from the DOR Team Day last week in Devizes. Nearly 600 people attended. I particularly enjoyed the green/red card voting on specific questions led by Laurie Bell and her team. I thought the fact that 90%+ of DOR would like to see a cut in their terms and conditions if it meant less job losses was a powerful message to us as leaders. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve this event then please let me know.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 18 November 2010
The impact of the business plan and what it means for DoR
Andrew has spoken about the Business Plan; the cost pressures we face, particularly with a need to protect the most vulnerable in our society, the savings we need to deliver from people or staff, procurement, our lean systems work; the investment that members wish to make in improving some of our services. So what does this mean for DOR – a mix of front line and support services?
The financial settlement for Wiltshire is not yet published – we’re expecting that late this year – so what follows is my best assessment as to what will happen.
In terms of cost reduction, I am planning on delivering real cash savings back to the business of at least 12% in 11-12 – that’s the next financial year. This will be tough to deliver but is vital to balance out budget next year. You’ll remember that we are legally obliged to balance our budget.
Now we do essentially two things with all of our money; we pay our staff and we buy goods and services. These two categories of spend will be impacted about equally. What this means is that we will be getting smaller – as an organisation and as a team in terms of numbers of staff employed and the services which we deliver.
Because we moved to unitary status, I have no doubt that we are in a better place than other organisations facing this challenge. This fact doesn’t make the task easier though – it’s still tough to do, as evidenced by the 560 managers we put at risk last week, including 90 from our team here today. Last week was one of the most difficult of my career but the professionalism and dignity of all those involved was incredible; reassuring and inspiring.
Because this is tough, it would be easy for us all to become trapped in a spiral of fear, worry, and anxiety about our individual situations. In my experience, from both the private and the public sector, those organisations that remain “stuck” in this place are going to be in big trouble. They become increasing more irrelevant as the world moves on around them – whilst they focus on themselves. We are not going to become irrelevant!
We have to remain focused on the future, the opportunities that it presents and above all on our customers – the people of Wiltshire, represented by their elected members. So what about that future then?
In DOR, we have and continue to invest heavily to improve our services; making them better performing at lower cost. These investments include; work place transformation, new work-anywhere ICT (both beautifully demonstrated when I was in Bourne Hill last week by the teams moving into that building), the Business Management Programme – SAP, our national-leading work on lean systems thinking, our transition to unitary and our work with communities and Area Boards. Our ability to deliver major change programmes on time, on quality and on cost is giving us a deserved national reputation.
All of this work gives us a solid base on which to continue to build a strong future; and our mission will be to exploit this investment to maximise our performance to our customers whilst occupying a smaller financial foot print. So what might this mean specifically?
- Communication and public engagement: I am astounded by the development of social networking and we must seize this opportunity to use it for community engagement; both the communities we serve and the internal communities and teams we work in.
This is ably demonstrated by one local government organisation I know where their citizens are writing Wiki-plans – a role normally performed my professionals within the organisation. This shows the power of social networking and how it can be harnessed to deliver better community engagement. You can do the same thing internally too.
- Major rationalisation of ICT applications and infrastructure
- Exploit the new technology of cloud computing – particularly important in an dispersed geographical area like Wiltshire
- We’re deploying a new revenues and benefits system; serving customers in the home; instant decisions and enabling a redesign of that team around the customer using lean techniques
- New, more relevant ways of assessing and measuring our performance
- New ways to deliver democratic renewal
Some councillors are struggling to balance their professional work with their work as an elected member; this is reducing the pool of people who wish to put themselves forward for election. We need to address this.
We need to develop and exploit our On-line capability, self service for external and internal services with fast, reliable decisions – both external customers and internal customers:
- The web as the Customer access channel of choice for most high volume, low value services
The same thing for our internal customers, especially around HR and Finance
Financial management information down to community area, by service to facilitate Big Society with sound information to enable people to become more engaged in what’s happening on their patch
- We will need to do this for the 4 test bed Area Boards as we take these to the next stage. This will mean a fundamentally different role for Finance professionals
Continuing to drive out efficiencies from our transactional services and exploring how we could share these with others; the voluntary sector, other local public bodies, other local authorities; the private sector.
- We have just started to share vehicle maintenance facilities with Fire & Rescue and I am meeting Andy Goves, the Chief Fire Officer tomorrow to start further work on sharing other support services.
It’s our job to translate this vision into reality; to identify how we will achieve it; to resolve the inevitable conflicts; to deliver for our customers; to innovate; to imagine something else – a better way to work; to make local government relevant to today’s society and the issues it faces. We must set the agenda for the future and deliver it, not live in the past celebrating worthy, but old achievements.
This is all of our jobs. Please discuss this in your teams and work out how your team will contribute to the agenda, and how you individually will contribute. In a smaller organisation, innovation and contribution are going to be the key differentiators between leaders and followers. I want Wiltshire Council and this team to be leading!
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 12 November 2010
Friday 12 November
It's been a tough week this week. On Wednesday we made the announcements regarding which managers are at risk of redundancy. Over 550 across the organisation - about 90 in DOR. The service directors and I led five sessions on Wednesday, by service team to explain why we were restructuring, how we had approached it, and the impact on those managers affected. We then spent time explaining the support available for those affected over the next 12 weeks or so of the consultation process. This was difficult news to share as you can imagine but I was impressed by the professionalism and dignity which everybody showed throughout. I want to also thank the HR team for the volume and quality of the work that they have turned round over the last two months in preparation for this week. Unfortunately I have been through this process before in the private sector and our HR team is as good as any I've seen elsewhere. Well done.
The next few months are going to be difficult for all of us; we are all worried about the future and emotions are running high which is exactly what you would expect. To get through this we need to have open conversations about how we feel, what we fear and what support we need to get through this - from all sources. It is up to all of us in the team to provide that support on an ongoing basis.
Earlier this week I was in Salisbury to see how the move into Bourne Hill was going. It was very impressive to see the new building occupied at last. The new ICT kit looked great and early customer satisfaction data back from the movers shows levels of satisfaction with the new kit and how it works at well above 90%. I want to thank all of those involved in making this new building such a success; the Workplace Transformation Programme team, the ICT team and all those other unsung heroes involved in what is looking to be a high quality, professional job.
Just a reminder that we have our Team Day next Wednesday the 17th. If you haven't booked your place then please do so as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
The next few months are going to be difficult for all of us; we are all worried about the future and emotions are running high which is exactly what you would expect. To get through this we need to have open conversations about how we feel, what we fear and what support we need to get through this - from all sources. It is up to all of us in the team to provide that support on an ongoing basis.
Earlier this week I was in Salisbury to see how the move into Bourne Hill was going. It was very impressive to see the new building occupied at last. The new ICT kit looked great and early customer satisfaction data back from the movers shows levels of satisfaction with the new kit and how it works at well above 90%. I want to thank all of those involved in making this new building such a success; the Workplace Transformation Programme team, the ICT team and all those other unsung heroes involved in what is looking to be a high quality, professional job.
Just a reminder that we have our Team Day next Wednesday the 17th. If you haven't booked your place then please do so as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 5 November 2010
Friday 5 November
It's been a week or two since I last blogged as I was out for most of last week spending half term with my family. Lots of Scalextric!
It's been busy since the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review funding reductions. I seem to have spent most of my time talking with senior colleagues about how we will approach the task and exploring alternative ways of achieving the reductions. I am missing spending time with the teams in the hubs as a result. Wiltshire doesn't know precisely what grant it will receive next year and won't know until mid December at the earliest so it still feels like we have too many unknowns. Having said that we are working on plans for a 12% reduction in service budgets next year as a likely scenario for the budget setting process. This will be tough to achieve as evidenced by the start of the formal management review process this week. You will have also seen further proposals that are being discussed with the unions. We can explore these together more fully at the Team Day later this month.
The DOR Team Day is set for November 17 and I just wanted to remind everybody to sign up for either the morning or afternoon session. The venue is Devizes this time as the Civic Hall in Trowbridge is closed for refurbishment. I hope to see as many of you there as can make it.
Finally there seems to be a rumour circulating amongst some staff that I am leaving the organisation. Wishful thinking on somebody's part I think, as I have no plans to leave. If I find the culprit...
Thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
It's been busy since the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review funding reductions. I seem to have spent most of my time talking with senior colleagues about how we will approach the task and exploring alternative ways of achieving the reductions. I am missing spending time with the teams in the hubs as a result. Wiltshire doesn't know precisely what grant it will receive next year and won't know until mid December at the earliest so it still feels like we have too many unknowns. Having said that we are working on plans for a 12% reduction in service budgets next year as a likely scenario for the budget setting process. This will be tough to achieve as evidenced by the start of the formal management review process this week. You will have also seen further proposals that are being discussed with the unions. We can explore these together more fully at the Team Day later this month.
The DOR Team Day is set for November 17 and I just wanted to remind everybody to sign up for either the morning or afternoon session. The venue is Devizes this time as the Civic Hall in Trowbridge is closed for refurbishment. I hope to see as many of you there as can make it.
Finally there seems to be a rumour circulating amongst some staff that I am leaving the organisation. Wishful thinking on somebody's part I think, as I have no plans to leave. If I find the culprit...
Thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 15 October 2010
Friday 15 October 2010
It feels like we are all waiting with bated breath for next week's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announcements on public sector spending. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will stand up on Wednesday at 12.30 in Parliament and announce how he intends to address the country's financial deficit - the gap between what we currently spend each year and what the government currently receives from us all in taxes. It's a very big gap.
It's clear to me that we in local government face a large cut in our numerous grants from central government. I shan't guess a number today because it will almost certainly be wrong. What I would say is that the Chancellor ' s announcement will change fundamentally everything we do and how we do it.
I thought I'd share with you today the important questions that we are each going to have to ask as we assess each of our current services and decide how we deliver these in the future.
1. is the activity essential to meet Wiltshire Councils priorities?
2. does Wiltshire Council need to fund this activity?
3. does the activity provide substantial economic value?
4. can the activity be targeted to those most in need?
5. how can the activity be provided at a lower cost?
6. how can the activity to provided more effectively?
7. can the activity be provided by a non-state provider or citizens, wholly or in partnership?
8. can non-state providers be paid to carry out the activity according to the results they achieve?
9. can local voluntary or community bodies, as opposed to Wiltshire Council, provide the activity?
Have a think about these questions in relation to the service in which you work. Let me know what you're thinking.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
It's clear to me that we in local government face a large cut in our numerous grants from central government. I shan't guess a number today because it will almost certainly be wrong. What I would say is that the Chancellor ' s announcement will change fundamentally everything we do and how we do it.
I thought I'd share with you today the important questions that we are each going to have to ask as we assess each of our current services and decide how we deliver these in the future.
1. is the activity essential to meet Wiltshire Councils priorities?
2. does Wiltshire Council need to fund this activity?
3. does the activity provide substantial economic value?
4. can the activity be targeted to those most in need?
5. how can the activity be provided at a lower cost?
6. how can the activity to provided more effectively?
7. can the activity be provided by a non-state provider or citizens, wholly or in partnership?
8. can non-state providers be paid to carry out the activity according to the results they achieve?
9. can local voluntary or community bodies, as opposed to Wiltshire Council, provide the activity?
Have a think about these questions in relation to the service in which you work. Let me know what you're thinking.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Thursday 7 October 2010
A shorter blog than last week as it's late Thursday evening, I'm running out of steam and I'm not around tomorrow.
Jane and Andrew have been holding meetings with managers and staff this week to explain the changes in the organisation that we all face over the next six months and beyond. I've been reflecting on the challenge ahead and I think I would describe it like this:
Our Challenge…
There has never been a more challenging time for us in the council. The challenges will become tougher still, but along with challenge comes opportunity. For those services and teams that are able and willing to adapt, it’s going to be an exciting time.
The world changes quickly and we have to change with it. Sometimes this means thinking about things in a different way. Looking for the opportunity in everything, even when it’s not obvious.
I think that’s one thing that distinguishes leaders from followers, and Wiltshire Council is a leader.
Talk again next week.
Carlton
Jane and Andrew have been holding meetings with managers and staff this week to explain the changes in the organisation that we all face over the next six months and beyond. I've been reflecting on the challenge ahead and I think I would describe it like this:
Our Challenge…
There has never been a more challenging time for us in the council. The challenges will become tougher still, but along with challenge comes opportunity. For those services and teams that are able and willing to adapt, it’s going to be an exciting time.
The world changes quickly and we have to change with it. Sometimes this means thinking about things in a different way. Looking for the opportunity in everything, even when it’s not obvious.
I think that’s one thing that distinguishes leaders from followers, and Wiltshire Council is a leader.
Talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 1 October 2010
Friday 1 October 2010
I attended the inaugural staff awards in Salisbury on Monday night. The City Hall looked great and the main hall looked just like the Oscars - some very impressive organisation by the comms team and the City Hall staff. The awards were brilliant, every nominee, short listed entry and winner were inspirational in their commitment, energy and focus on our customers and communities. I felt quite humbled by the experience. It would be wrong of me to pick out any winners to mention, so well done to you all!
Yesterday we held the Audit Committee where the prime business was to approve the closure of the accounts for the first year of Wiltshire Council. This went smoothly, with only three major recommendation from our external auditors in terms of how we should improve our business. I was extremely pleased with this performance and must thank Matthew Tiller and Steve Memmott and their respective teams for this. Well done guys.
As you may know Deborah Farrow has decided to move on to a new career in the private sector. I want to thank Deborah for her outstanding leadership, tenacity, political management skill and knowledge of systems thinking which have had such a profound impact on the organisation in the three years that she has been with us. I knew we wouldn't keep her forever - good people always move on - so we shouldn't be surprised by this announcement.
In consultation with the Portfolio Holder for ICT, I don't plan to replace Deborah at service director level because of the need to reduce managers by around 240 posts across the organisation - 50 in DOR by March. I will be changing my structure, like all corporate directors from next April and will move the ICT and other responsibilities to another service director.
To ensure the focus and leadership required to deliver all that we have to in ICT, I am expanding Mark Stone's role to become programme director ICT, information management and work place transformation. There are clear synergies between these areas of work. These arrangements will be in place for up to 18 months to ensure continuity during a period of substantial change to the business.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week
Carlton
Yesterday we held the Audit Committee where the prime business was to approve the closure of the accounts for the first year of Wiltshire Council. This went smoothly, with only three major recommendation from our external auditors in terms of how we should improve our business. I was extremely pleased with this performance and must thank Matthew Tiller and Steve Memmott and their respective teams for this. Well done guys.
As you may know Deborah Farrow has decided to move on to a new career in the private sector. I want to thank Deborah for her outstanding leadership, tenacity, political management skill and knowledge of systems thinking which have had such a profound impact on the organisation in the three years that she has been with us. I knew we wouldn't keep her forever - good people always move on - so we shouldn't be surprised by this announcement.
In consultation with the Portfolio Holder for ICT, I don't plan to replace Deborah at service director level because of the need to reduce managers by around 240 posts across the organisation - 50 in DOR by March. I will be changing my structure, like all corporate directors from next April and will move the ICT and other responsibilities to another service director.
To ensure the focus and leadership required to deliver all that we have to in ICT, I am expanding Mark Stone's role to become programme director ICT, information management and work place transformation. There are clear synergies between these areas of work. These arrangements will be in place for up to 18 months to ensure continuity during a period of substantial change to the business.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week
Carlton
Friday, 24 September 2010
Friday 24 September 2010
Well the news this week has all been about our plans for investment in front line services and cost reduction over the next four years. The Leaders and Chief Executive met the press on Monday for a full series of briefings and then appeared on the television later to give the same messages.
I thought it would be wise for me to use this week’s blog to repeat some of the key headline messages, just in case some of you have missed the press and television this week. If anybody would like to discuss these plans then do please contact me.
We will face a number of challenges over the next four years.
We are currently working on a business plan that sets out how the council will manage the difficult financial challenges that it is facing. Our approach is ambitious and focuses on good robust management.
We believe we can do this as we can take advantage of being a new unitary council. This allows us to maximise our potential and make the most effective use of our resources. We see this as an opportunity to deliver investment and savings at a quicker pace, which will result in a better council and better services for the people of Wiltshire.
The situation we face is unique as the national constraints on funding combined with the fundamental change to public services have not been seen on this scale since the Second World War.
It means we will have a new role and become less of a provider of services and more of a strategic enabling body. This will mean the council will become smaller and employ less people over the next few years.
What are the challenges we face?
Challenge 1 – central government funding cuts
The new coalition government has made it clear that its priority is to reduce the national financial deficit.
It is likely that government grant funding to local councils will be reduced by at least 25% from April 2011 - this figure will be confirmed following the Comprehensive Spending Review announcements on 20 October.
This reduction will result in an estimated deficit in our 4 year budget plan of £122 million, which is 3.6% of our gross budget and 8.8% of our net budget.
Our total gross budget for the next 4 years is £3,416,000,000.
Challenge 2 – investing in priorities over the same time period
We want to improve and invest in some services and protect the most vulnerable in our communities.
We will invest and redirect £170 million over the next 4 years to achieve this. This is 5.0% of our gross budget and 12.2% of our net budget.
We will invest;
I thought it would be wise for me to use this week’s blog to repeat some of the key headline messages, just in case some of you have missed the press and television this week. If anybody would like to discuss these plans then do please contact me.
We will face a number of challenges over the next four years.
We are currently working on a business plan that sets out how the council will manage the difficult financial challenges that it is facing. Our approach is ambitious and focuses on good robust management.
We believe we can do this as we can take advantage of being a new unitary council. This allows us to maximise our potential and make the most effective use of our resources. We see this as an opportunity to deliver investment and savings at a quicker pace, which will result in a better council and better services for the people of Wiltshire.
The situation we face is unique as the national constraints on funding combined with the fundamental change to public services have not been seen on this scale since the Second World War.
It means we will have a new role and become less of a provider of services and more of a strategic enabling body. This will mean the council will become smaller and employ less people over the next few years.
What are the challenges we face?
Challenge 1 – central government funding cuts
The new coalition government has made it clear that its priority is to reduce the national financial deficit.
It is likely that government grant funding to local councils will be reduced by at least 25% from April 2011 - this figure will be confirmed following the Comprehensive Spending Review announcements on 20 October.
This reduction will result in an estimated deficit in our 4 year budget plan of £122 million, which is 3.6% of our gross budget and 8.8% of our net budget.
Our total gross budget for the next 4 years is £3,416,000,000.
Challenge 2 – investing in priorities over the same time period
We want to improve and invest in some services and protect the most vulnerable in our communities.
We will invest and redirect £170 million over the next 4 years to achieve this. This is 5.0% of our gross budget and 12.2% of our net budget.
We will invest;
- £40m into improving and delivering new services
- Waste and recycling, leisure, new housing, broadband access and school improvements
- £40 million into protecting the vulnerable
- Adults and children’s social care
- Energy efficiency
- The economy
Challenge 3 - how will we do this?
By April next year - 2011 (year 1 of our business plan) we have to save around £40 million.
People management
You may be aware that Corporate and Service Directors have been working on reviewing the number of managers in their structures. The saving of £8 million as highlighted above = approximately 240 managers.
The revised structures will be finalised by the end of September.
Directors will be discussing with their managers the revised structures in October.
In line with this we have been negotiating with the unions on devising a new set of Redundancy policies to reflect the current circumstances.
Jane and Andrew will also be meeting all managers and staff at face to face forums week commencing 4 October to discuss the next four years and what this means to the council and people of Wiltshire.
Service Reviews and Improvements
We will be adopting a “systems thinking” approach to our services to reduce waste, improve services and be more customer focused.
How we purchase goods and services
Be more business like in how we purchase our goods and services to reduce costs and be more efficient. We will identify and deliver cash savings of £9 million per year.
Income generation
Maximise our opportunities to generate income.
Our business plan is about good management…
The move to unitary has provided us with the foundations to deliver an ambitious but realistic plan. The only factor that would have been different is the pace and speed that we have to do it by. The government is driving change and its focus is reducing the national deficit. We have to move quickly to make savings by next April.
Thanks for reading and speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 17 September 2010
Friday 17 September
Well I've almost but not quite forgotten my holidays. Just clinging on to the last memories. I spent all of Tuesday in Salisbury, firstly attending the Cabinet meeting at the City Hall and then we also held our Corporate Leadership Team meeting in the city. It was good to meet staff and spend some time with front line services, as well taking a quick look at Bourne Hill. The new offices open next month and I must admit I'm somewhat jealous that I won't be based their permanently.
At CLT we have been working hard on developing the detail in our new Business Plan. You'll remember that this is the plan which will balance our investment in services over the next four years with the projected reduction in income from the government to be announced next month. The leader and chief executive will be briefing the press on Monday with the details and these will be made available to staff earlier on Monday.
Today I attended the Organisation and Resources Scrutiny Select Committee. There were some robust discussions on our HR policies and I led a presentation on the detail of how we will deliver the £36 million we need to save from the procurement of goods and services over the next four years. Scrutiny is a vital part of our business I want to encourage officers to use this forum to develop and shape policy on its way to the formal Cabinet and council decision making body.
The procurement and commissioning programme is now underway. You will have seen details about this on the Electric Wire last week. Please can I encourage you to support the team in this important work for the council.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton
At CLT we have been working hard on developing the detail in our new Business Plan. You'll remember that this is the plan which will balance our investment in services over the next four years with the projected reduction in income from the government to be announced next month. The leader and chief executive will be briefing the press on Monday with the details and these will be made available to staff earlier on Monday.
Today I attended the Organisation and Resources Scrutiny Select Committee. There were some robust discussions on our HR policies and I led a presentation on the detail of how we will deliver the £36 million we need to save from the procurement of goods and services over the next four years. Scrutiny is a vital part of our business I want to encourage officers to use this forum to develop and shape policy on its way to the formal Cabinet and council decision making body.
The procurement and commissioning programme is now underway. You will have seen details about this on the Electric Wire last week. Please can I encourage you to support the team in this important work for the council.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Thursday 9 September
Here we are in September and it feels like a new term. I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. I feel re-energised after the busy year so far. The new term is going to be very busy for us and includes six important pieces of work that we have to deliver before Christmas.
Bourne Hill will be opening next month when we start to move staff into the building. Coupled with the move is significant numbers of staff with work from home capability (already 200+) and all new ICT. I chaired the Programme Board yesterday and we are right on track with this.
The government will announce its Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20. This is when we will find out the size of the government financial cut backs to address the national budget deficit. At this point we should know the amount by which our grant will be reduced so that we can finalise our Business Plan. We are predicting that we will lose 25%.
The Business plan is developing well - with a headline figure for efficiencies to be made of £100 million over the next 4 years. We anticipate that we will need £40 million to meet the government grant reduction, and we want a further £60 million to reinvest in priority services for the people of Wiltshire. We feel that this is a sensible and pragmatic approach to the challenges we face as an organisation. This is the next logical step after Local Government Reorganisation and we are well placed to achieved this.
Part of the Business Plan will be a review and reduction of management costs. The Service Directors and I have almost completed this and we will be reviewing this over the coming weeks with staff affected.
ICT will be in-sourced from Steria by January 1st. The project work leading up to this is intense and the teams are flat out to ensure this is achieved with quality and without affecting system performance and reliability. This is a tough ask.
Finally we will be starting the de-cant of County Hall which is the next phase of the Work Place Transformation programme (WPT). The WPT makes annual savings of £4.5 million so it is an important part of our overall plan to reduce operational costs and to move additional money to front line service areas.
All in all, a very busy term ahead for us as a team.
Thanks for reading and we'll chat again next week.
Carlton
Bourne Hill will be opening next month when we start to move staff into the building. Coupled with the move is significant numbers of staff with work from home capability (already 200+) and all new ICT. I chaired the Programme Board yesterday and we are right on track with this.
The government will announce its Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20. This is when we will find out the size of the government financial cut backs to address the national budget deficit. At this point we should know the amount by which our grant will be reduced so that we can finalise our Business Plan. We are predicting that we will lose 25%.
The Business plan is developing well - with a headline figure for efficiencies to be made of £100 million over the next 4 years. We anticipate that we will need £40 million to meet the government grant reduction, and we want a further £60 million to reinvest in priority services for the people of Wiltshire. We feel that this is a sensible and pragmatic approach to the challenges we face as an organisation. This is the next logical step after Local Government Reorganisation and we are well placed to achieved this.
Part of the Business Plan will be a review and reduction of management costs. The Service Directors and I have almost completed this and we will be reviewing this over the coming weeks with staff affected.
ICT will be in-sourced from Steria by January 1st. The project work leading up to this is intense and the teams are flat out to ensure this is achieved with quality and without affecting system performance and reliability. This is a tough ask.
Finally we will be starting the de-cant of County Hall which is the next phase of the Work Place Transformation programme (WPT). The WPT makes annual savings of £4.5 million so it is an important part of our overall plan to reduce operational costs and to move additional money to front line service areas.
All in all, a very busy term ahead for us as a team.
Thanks for reading and we'll chat again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Hello all, I'm writing my blog slightly earlier this week so that those of you about to depart for sunnier climes may get a chance to read it. Having said that, I shall make this the last blog until September as I am also off for a couple of weeks in August (jetting off to Dorset again).
The week started with the Cabinet Away Day at Urchfont. Cabinet were joined by the Corporate Leadership Team and we worked together on the strategic plans for reshaping the organisation in a post-coalition government world. This work will be refined as we move through the Autumn towards the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review on October 22. This is the date when we will find out formally the government's spending plans and priorities for local government for the next four years. However we've all read the press and we know that this will entail reductions in expenditure of 25-40%. The plans we are developing will deliver this coupled with the investment we need in some local services to deliver the priorities of our elected members. We will start communicating some of these plans over the coming weeks.
Tuesday was Cabinet which had some meaty items on the agenda, not least our plans to consult on the investment we plan to make in leisure provision across the county and the results of the consultation on our special educational needs provision. There were many speakers from the public at Cabinet and it was inspiring to see communities engaging and reshaping our plans through the process. Well done to all of those involved in this work.
Finally I am spending a lot of time this week writing and conducting my year end performance appraisals with my direct reports. I encourage you all to do this as it is a vital part of the role of management and leadership - feedback. If you haven't had such a session with your line manager then please request it - tell them I said so!
Thanks for reading and enjoy your summer holidays.
Talk again the first week in September.
Carlton
The week started with the Cabinet Away Day at Urchfont. Cabinet were joined by the Corporate Leadership Team and we worked together on the strategic plans for reshaping the organisation in a post-coalition government world. This work will be refined as we move through the Autumn towards the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review on October 22. This is the date when we will find out formally the government's spending plans and priorities for local government for the next four years. However we've all read the press and we know that this will entail reductions in expenditure of 25-40%. The plans we are developing will deliver this coupled with the investment we need in some local services to deliver the priorities of our elected members. We will start communicating some of these plans over the coming weeks.
Tuesday was Cabinet which had some meaty items on the agenda, not least our plans to consult on the investment we plan to make in leisure provision across the county and the results of the consultation on our special educational needs provision. There were many speakers from the public at Cabinet and it was inspiring to see communities engaging and reshaping our plans through the process. Well done to all of those involved in this work.
Finally I am spending a lot of time this week writing and conducting my year end performance appraisals with my direct reports. I encourage you all to do this as it is a vital part of the role of management and leadership - feedback. If you haven't had such a session with your line manager then please request it - tell them I said so!
Thanks for reading and enjoy your summer holidays.
Talk again the first week in September.
Carlton
Monday, 19 July 2010
Monday 19 July
My apologies for the late blog - Monday instead of the usual Friday. I'm going to swap the days for the next couple of weeks as Fridays seem particularly intense at the moment! But then again so do Mondays...
CLT continue to work on the detail of the business plan which will be ready by September. This will include the detailed plans of how we will reshape the business to achieve the community and service objectives of our elected members whilst operating the business within the tighter financial constraints set by the coalition government. There are likely to be four key strands to this work; service redesign around lean principles, cost reduction from better procurement and commissioning, better use of our physical assets and optimisation of our staffing structures. CLT held two sessions on these areas last week and we have a further two planned today - including an evening session to make progress quickly. We'll develop the communication plans around this once we have met with Cabinet to seek their input and overarching approval to the approach. This is scheduled for next Monday - 26th when we have a full day with Cabinet members to discuss and develop these issues.
Thanks for reading and have a good week.
Carlton
CLT continue to work on the detail of the business plan which will be ready by September. This will include the detailed plans of how we will reshape the business to achieve the community and service objectives of our elected members whilst operating the business within the tighter financial constraints set by the coalition government. There are likely to be four key strands to this work; service redesign around lean principles, cost reduction from better procurement and commissioning, better use of our physical assets and optimisation of our staffing structures. CLT held two sessions on these areas last week and we have a further two planned today - including an evening session to make progress quickly. We'll develop the communication plans around this once we have met with Cabinet to seek their input and overarching approval to the approach. This is scheduled for next Monday - 26th when we have a full day with Cabinet members to discuss and develop these issues.
Thanks for reading and have a good week.
Carlton
Friday, 9 July 2010
Friday 9 July 2010
We have a weekend of sport ahead of us which I'm really looking forward to with the boys - the British Grand Prix and the World Cup Final. Not sure I'll be going out much this weekend...
We held the monthly Procurement & Commissioning Board earlier this week. This Board is charged with managing all council spend that is associated with purchased goods and services. This amounts to a net spend of £237million in 2010-11 - more than 68% of our total net spend. Many people assume that we spend most of our money on employing people but this is not correct, it's around 30%. We buy or procure a huge range of supplies as well as contracting with other public sector bodies and the private and voluntary sectors to directly provide many of our services to the citizens and communities in Wiltshire.
We are setting ourselves some challenging cost reduction targets for this spend. Over the next four years we wish to deliver around £40 million of cost reduction from this area of the business and to redirect this to those front line services that our elected members prioritise. This will be quite some challenge, but our track record over the past 2-3 years in this area is good which makes me confident that we'll succeed.
Have a good weekend and thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
We held the monthly Procurement & Commissioning Board earlier this week. This Board is charged with managing all council spend that is associated with purchased goods and services. This amounts to a net spend of £237million in 2010-11 - more than 68% of our total net spend. Many people assume that we spend most of our money on employing people but this is not correct, it's around 30%. We buy or procure a huge range of supplies as well as contracting with other public sector bodies and the private and voluntary sectors to directly provide many of our services to the citizens and communities in Wiltshire.
We are setting ourselves some challenging cost reduction targets for this spend. Over the next four years we wish to deliver around £40 million of cost reduction from this area of the business and to redirect this to those front line services that our elected members prioritise. This will be quite some challenge, but our track record over the past 2-3 years in this area is good which makes me confident that we'll succeed.
Have a good weekend and thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 2 July 2010
Friday 2 July 2010
This week has been busy - no change there then! I attended the Budget and Performance Task group earlier in the week where councillors scrutinised our budget outturn for 2009-10. I'm very pleased with this, especially in a year of such major change resulting from Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) and the introduction of the Business Management Programme (BMP). On a budget spend of £850 million, we overspent by £224,000 which is an excellent result - better than I ever saw in 20 years in the private sector! This included having to offset over £9 million in the year as a result of cost pressures resulting from the recession and the banking crisis. Well done everybody. Our elected councillors said the same too.
The Audit Committee on Wednesday examined the draft set of accounts and interim audit reports form KPMG - our external auditors. Some of you will have seen that this made the press and the telly where some of the risks raised by KPMG were taken out of context and portrayed as major financial problems for the council. I'm pleased to say that this is not the case; we delivered on a balanced budget outturn and made significant cost savings including all those to which we committed for LGR and BMP. This is important as it frees up substantial additional money to target into front line services for our communities and customers - part of our overarching goal in Resources.
Finally this week I've been out and about around the teams for a couple of desk one-to-ones (with Phil Durston, Christine Baker and Sarah Taylor-Wallace - thank you all for your time), and held another tea and biscuits session with six front line staff (one of whom brought a large cake - very kind, thank you). This always provides me with a rich learning experience and lots of ideas for improvement. If anybody wants to volunteer for future sessions, please just get in touch.
Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
The Audit Committee on Wednesday examined the draft set of accounts and interim audit reports form KPMG - our external auditors. Some of you will have seen that this made the press and the telly where some of the risks raised by KPMG were taken out of context and portrayed as major financial problems for the council. I'm pleased to say that this is not the case; we delivered on a balanced budget outturn and made significant cost savings including all those to which we committed for LGR and BMP. This is important as it frees up substantial additional money to target into front line services for our communities and customers - part of our overarching goal in Resources.
Finally this week I've been out and about around the teams for a couple of desk one-to-ones (with Phil Durston, Christine Baker and Sarah Taylor-Wallace - thank you all for your time), and held another tea and biscuits session with six front line staff (one of whom brought a large cake - very kind, thank you). This always provides me with a rich learning experience and lots of ideas for improvement. If anybody wants to volunteer for future sessions, please just get in touch.
Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 25 June 2010
Friday 25 June 2010
This week saw us publish the Department of Resources Delivery Plan 2010-14. This plan details how we will be delivering the objectives outlined in the recently approved Corporate Plan. The plan will be subject to a Scrutiny Review over the next few months so that members can investigate what we will be doing, why and how we plan these actions. There is a lot of detail but we've tried to write it in a short, succinct way to make is easy to read and understand. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on the content and style from anybody in the organisation. You can find it on the intranet at:
http://thewire.wiltshire.council/index/councillors-area/departmental-delivery-plans.htm
The budget on Tuesday announced reduced public sector spending of 25% over the next 4 years. This amounts to a 6.25% reduction per year for four years. We are well placed in Wiltshire to meet this challenge moving forward. Our new unitary organisation - with all local government services now in one place, our work on procurement and commissioning coupled with our national recognition for business transformation using systems thinking principles all stand us in good stead.
CLT met this week for two days to plan how we will achieve this task. It was an excellent session where we developed a comprehensive response plan to not only meet these challenges but also to deliver all of the political objectives in the Corporate Plan. We will share the options with the elected members over the next few days and weeks and once they have decided on an approach we will communicate this widely. Please keep an eye out for comms on The Wire around this whole subject area.
Thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
http://thewire.wiltshire.council/index/councillors-area/departmental-delivery-plans.htm
The budget on Tuesday announced reduced public sector spending of 25% over the next 4 years. This amounts to a 6.25% reduction per year for four years. We are well placed in Wiltshire to meet this challenge moving forward. Our new unitary organisation - with all local government services now in one place, our work on procurement and commissioning coupled with our national recognition for business transformation using systems thinking principles all stand us in good stead.
CLT met this week for two days to plan how we will achieve this task. It was an excellent session where we developed a comprehensive response plan to not only meet these challenges but also to deliver all of the political objectives in the Corporate Plan. We will share the options with the elected members over the next few days and weeks and once they have decided on an approach we will communicate this widely. Please keep an eye out for comms on The Wire around this whole subject area.
Thanks for reading. Talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 18 June 2010
Friday 18 June 2010
England World Cup day two tonight. More despair probably but hey let's be positive for tonight's game. I must admit I'm not big on football but I do get caught up in the excitement of the World Cup - the two boys do too which is fun.
Today I'm attending the third Human Resources / Organisational Development Learning & Development Conference in Devizes. The whole team are getting together to do some learning and development focused on the journey ahead that we have. I would encourage other teams to do the same - learning and development is so important for an organisation that faces the challenges that we face over the next few years.
I've been asked a series of questions by the team which I thought I'd share with you in this week's blog - some are a bit of fun I think, while others are more serious.
Q1. Can we actually quantify the savings made through lean systems? Yes is the short answer. In each intervention, the team quantify precisely what the current system delivers in terms of performance (and what it costs) and with the knowledge gained through the process in respect of the levels of waste, redesign the system to deliver new levels of performance at reduced cost. Adult care have removed more than £2m of cost by using this approach.
Q2. What three things would you change if you had the power to change them tomorrow? This sounds like a Miss World question from the 1970s! I would want world peace, unlimited money for Wiltshire Council to do innovative things for our citizens and England to win the world cup!
Q3. What is the best part of my job? Leading an inspirational team and achieving big changes in our organisation to better serve people in Wiltshire
Q4. Is there an update on the car parking issues at County Hall? Not that I'm aware of but I'll find out.
Q5. In the coalition governments programme, it states that "we will promote radical devolution of power and financial autonomy to local government. This will include a review of local government finance". What does this mean and is it good or bad for us? I think it means that government will reduce the amount of central control on what we spend our money on (so called reductions in ring-fencing, i.e. prescribing how we spend our money from Whitehall). The quid pro quo of this will be that central government will reduce its funding to us by about 20%. This is good and bad for us. More control is good, less money is bad. We will have to be very innovative to continue with what we wish to do over the next few years with this sort of cut in income.
Q6. The coalition government have announced that they will cut government inspection and abolish the Comprehensive Area Assessment. Will this help our current situation? No not really. The removal of CAA will place less burden on us and will save a bit of money - but not a lot in the overall scheme of things. I also believe that many parts of the inspection were a good test and challenge to us as a team in terms of our performance management of the business. So we'll continue with some elements of these inspections for ourselves.
Thanks for reading and enjoy tonight's match!
Carlton
Today I'm attending the third Human Resources / Organisational Development Learning & Development Conference in Devizes. The whole team are getting together to do some learning and development focused on the journey ahead that we have. I would encourage other teams to do the same - learning and development is so important for an organisation that faces the challenges that we face over the next few years.
I've been asked a series of questions by the team which I thought I'd share with you in this week's blog - some are a bit of fun I think, while others are more serious.
Q1. Can we actually quantify the savings made through lean systems? Yes is the short answer. In each intervention, the team quantify precisely what the current system delivers in terms of performance (and what it costs) and with the knowledge gained through the process in respect of the levels of waste, redesign the system to deliver new levels of performance at reduced cost. Adult care have removed more than £2m of cost by using this approach.
Q2. What three things would you change if you had the power to change them tomorrow? This sounds like a Miss World question from the 1970s! I would want world peace, unlimited money for Wiltshire Council to do innovative things for our citizens and England to win the world cup!
Q3. What is the best part of my job? Leading an inspirational team and achieving big changes in our organisation to better serve people in Wiltshire
Q4. Is there an update on the car parking issues at County Hall? Not that I'm aware of but I'll find out.
Q5. In the coalition governments programme, it states that "we will promote radical devolution of power and financial autonomy to local government. This will include a review of local government finance". What does this mean and is it good or bad for us? I think it means that government will reduce the amount of central control on what we spend our money on (so called reductions in ring-fencing, i.e. prescribing how we spend our money from Whitehall). The quid pro quo of this will be that central government will reduce its funding to us by about 20%. This is good and bad for us. More control is good, less money is bad. We will have to be very innovative to continue with what we wish to do over the next few years with this sort of cut in income.
Q6. The coalition government have announced that they will cut government inspection and abolish the Comprehensive Area Assessment. Will this help our current situation? No not really. The removal of CAA will place less burden on us and will save a bit of money - but not a lot in the overall scheme of things. I also believe that many parts of the inspection were a good test and challenge to us as a team in terms of our performance management of the business. So we'll continue with some elements of these inspections for ourselves.
Thanks for reading and enjoy tonight's match!
Carlton
Friday, 11 June 2010
Friday 11 June 2010
Back to work with a vengeance this week, complete with sun burn from the Bath & West show. We had a great week off touring the numerous summer events in the West Country and also managed a trip to Legoland which I always enjoy!
This week has all been about Thursday's staff and members tour of Bourne Hill complete with partial installed furniture and all new ICT. The day was brilliant; the building looked tremendous and the kit installed really demonstrated what Work Place Transformation is all about. 300 or so staff attended the event and many whom I talked with mentioned the culture change that this type of building will drive and said how impressed they were with the facilities, decor and kit that they will have. We will try and get some Trowbridge based staff around the building over the next few months so they can experience what the County Hall refurbishment will be like. I'd like to thank all of the team who prepared for the day and those on duty who made yesterday run so smoothly. Truly inspirational!
The other big news this week has been the government announcing where this years reductions in council expenditure will be made. Wiltshire Council will need to make savings of £2.7million revenue (0.7% of our total grant from central government) plus a further £1.5 million in capital. This information was posted on the CLG website just last night, so we will be considering this over the next few days to develop plans for members to meet these requirements. More of this next week.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
This week has all been about Thursday's staff and members tour of Bourne Hill complete with partial installed furniture and all new ICT. The day was brilliant; the building looked tremendous and the kit installed really demonstrated what Work Place Transformation is all about. 300 or so staff attended the event and many whom I talked with mentioned the culture change that this type of building will drive and said how impressed they were with the facilities, decor and kit that they will have. We will try and get some Trowbridge based staff around the building over the next few months so they can experience what the County Hall refurbishment will be like. I'd like to thank all of the team who prepared for the day and those on duty who made yesterday run so smoothly. Truly inspirational!
The other big news this week has been the government announcing where this years reductions in council expenditure will be made. Wiltshire Council will need to make savings of £2.7million revenue (0.7% of our total grant from central government) plus a further £1.5 million in capital. This information was posted on the CLG website just last night, so we will be considering this over the next few days to develop plans for members to meet these requirements. More of this next week.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Thursday 27 May
It's been a week out and about this week. Monday I was in Monkton Park for most of the day for Cabinet followed by a meeting of the Corporate Leadership Team. We spent some time digesting and discussing the implications of the coalition governments budget cuts of £6.2 billion this year. The next few years are going to be a time for innovation and creativity in terms of delivering enhanced services to our customer whilst cutting our costs!
Tuesday I was in Birmingham with the Chief Exec and Leader attending a conference with all of the other unitary councils that were created at the same time as Wiltshire. It was interesting to share information about how we are tackling some of the big challenges we face, and also an opportunity to learn from others.
Yesterday I spent some time with the Shared Services Team in East Wing. I always learn a lot form these visits and yesterday was no exception. I have a list of actions to follow up on where team members asked for help around issues such as; SAP interface development, the number of low value invoices we are processing, the way we process client contributions to respite care amongst others. If we can sort some of these issues out we will improve and simplify our business - which is good for our customers, our hard working staff and all at lower cost!
I shall be on holiday next week, so no blog I'm afraid. Back again week starting June 7.
Have a great bank holiday weekend and talk again soon.
Carlton
Tuesday I was in Birmingham with the Chief Exec and Leader attending a conference with all of the other unitary councils that were created at the same time as Wiltshire. It was interesting to share information about how we are tackling some of the big challenges we face, and also an opportunity to learn from others.
Yesterday I spent some time with the Shared Services Team in East Wing. I always learn a lot form these visits and yesterday was no exception. I have a list of actions to follow up on where team members asked for help around issues such as; SAP interface development, the number of low value invoices we are processing, the way we process client contributions to respite care amongst others. If we can sort some of these issues out we will improve and simplify our business - which is good for our customers, our hard working staff and all at lower cost!
I shall be on holiday next week, so no blog I'm afraid. Back again week starting June 7.
Have a great bank holiday weekend and talk again soon.
Carlton
Friday, 21 May 2010
Friday 21 May
This week saw the annual Council meeting on Tuesday where members decide whom will be chairing and serving on key committees across the organisation. Full Council also approved the Corporate Plan which will be in place for the next four years. This plan describes our vision, goals and the priorities and major work areas for the whole organisation. Our vision is to Create stronger and More Resilient Communities. It is underpinned by our three goals:
Deliver high quality, low cost, customer focused services
We must provide the services Wiltshire actually needs, of the quality our residents actually want, and do this in a cost effective way which represents value for money. We must make our residents and visitors, our customers, the starting point when designing and delivering services. Our focus, for everything we do, must be on the customer to ensure that people are satisfied with what we do.
Ensure local, open, honest decision making
To feel a sense of ownership and belonging, people must be able to contribute directly to the decisions that affect their local area. An open and honest approach is essential if we are to build trust in our communities.
Work together to support Wiltshire’s communities
The new council must work with its communities, focussing on their needs and helping them to help themselves. We will work closely with voluntary organisations, business and other public bodies. Working together to support communities and citizens, we can achieve so much more.
The Corporate Plan also describes our priorities and outcomes for the next four years
Our chosen priorities address the most pressing challenges facing Wiltshire. They respond to our customers and what they have said are important and need more attention.
The financial reality that we face means that we have to work differently. We must look at what we do, ensure we are doing the right things in the right way, avoid duplication, meet people’s needs and work in a more business like way to reduce costs.
We have identified the following priorities, as it is acknowledged that resources will not be sufficient to do everything we might want to do in the future.
- Focus on our customers and improve access to our services
- Work in partnership to support vulnerable individuals and families
- Local, open, honest decision-making
- Increase opportunities to help young people achieve their potential
- Support the local economy
- Meet housing needs
- Improve our roads and road safety
- Reduce our environmental impact
- Achieve savings, be more efficient and ensure we deliver value for money
We will review and design our services to reflect these priorities.
I'll come back to these priorities in future blogs, but for now have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Deliver high quality, low cost, customer focused services
We must provide the services Wiltshire actually needs, of the quality our residents actually want, and do this in a cost effective way which represents value for money. We must make our residents and visitors, our customers, the starting point when designing and delivering services. Our focus, for everything we do, must be on the customer to ensure that people are satisfied with what we do.
Ensure local, open, honest decision making
To feel a sense of ownership and belonging, people must be able to contribute directly to the decisions that affect their local area. An open and honest approach is essential if we are to build trust in our communities.
Work together to support Wiltshire’s communities
The new council must work with its communities, focussing on their needs and helping them to help themselves. We will work closely with voluntary organisations, business and other public bodies. Working together to support communities and citizens, we can achieve so much more.
The Corporate Plan also describes our priorities and outcomes for the next four years
Our chosen priorities address the most pressing challenges facing Wiltshire. They respond to our customers and what they have said are important and need more attention.
The financial reality that we face means that we have to work differently. We must look at what we do, ensure we are doing the right things in the right way, avoid duplication, meet people’s needs and work in a more business like way to reduce costs.
We have identified the following priorities, as it is acknowledged that resources will not be sufficient to do everything we might want to do in the future.
- Focus on our customers and improve access to our services
- Work in partnership to support vulnerable individuals and families
- Local, open, honest decision-making
- Increase opportunities to help young people achieve their potential
- Support the local economy
- Meet housing needs
- Improve our roads and road safety
- Reduce our environmental impact
- Achieve savings, be more efficient and ensure we deliver value for money
We will review and design our services to reflect these priorities.
I'll come back to these priorities in future blogs, but for now have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 14 May 2010
Friday
This week has been fascinating at the national level watching the political parties forming a coalition government. Clearly we expect now to have an emergency budget in around 50 days, so it will be interesting to see how the detailed policies for public sector spending emerge. Finance and CLT have been working on these likely plans for a number of months in our Medium Term Financial Plan, so I'm not expecting any big surprises. I have almost caught up on the nights sleep that I missed last Thursday after a long night at the count.
Yesterday we celebrated the final SAP Payroll rollout for schools over in the East Wing with speeches, lunch and cakes. It was a good opportunity to thank the staff involved, all of whom have put a tremendous amount of personal effort into ensuring a successful SAP launch. Our success here has been recognised recently with two awards - one national and one international. In the latter, we came third behind Asda and BP. Not a bad effort for Wiltshire in my book!
Earlier this week CLT spent a day at Urchfont developing the detail that will go in to the Business Plan that we are developing for member approval in September. The Business Plan will be the blue print of how we will run and develop the organisation to achieve the aims and objectives specified by members in the Corporate Plan. The Corporate Plan is due for debate and approval at Council next week. If you haven't had a chance to read this - and I urge you to as it describes what the council will be doing over the next 4 years - it's on the intranet. It's important that we all understand what is expected of us over the coming years.
Later today I shall be meeting up with the Housing team in Bradley Road. We'll be considering how we can help with the service transformation journey that they have started by deploying systems thinking or lean in critical areas of their business. More on this in future blogs.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Yesterday we celebrated the final SAP Payroll rollout for schools over in the East Wing with speeches, lunch and cakes. It was a good opportunity to thank the staff involved, all of whom have put a tremendous amount of personal effort into ensuring a successful SAP launch. Our success here has been recognised recently with two awards - one national and one international. In the latter, we came third behind Asda and BP. Not a bad effort for Wiltshire in my book!
Earlier this week CLT spent a day at Urchfont developing the detail that will go in to the Business Plan that we are developing for member approval in September. The Business Plan will be the blue print of how we will run and develop the organisation to achieve the aims and objectives specified by members in the Corporate Plan. The Corporate Plan is due for debate and approval at Council next week. If you haven't had a chance to read this - and I urge you to as it describes what the council will be doing over the next 4 years - it's on the intranet. It's important that we all understand what is expected of us over the coming years.
Later today I shall be meeting up with the Housing team in Bradley Road. We'll be considering how we can help with the service transformation journey that they have started by deploying systems thinking or lean in critical areas of their business. More on this in future blogs.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 7 May 2010
Friday 7 May 2010
I'm writing this at 5.20 am after declaring the result for the South West Wiltshire Constituency about two hours ago. It's been a long, fun night and I'm off home soon to bed.
I'd like to thank the election team for a great performance last night and this morning. The whole team has run the election very professionally.
Talk again next week.
Carlton
I'd like to thank the election team for a great performance last night and this morning. The whole team has run the election very professionally.
Talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 30 April 2010
Friday 30 April 2010
It's been a busy week this week. I am Deputy Assistant Returning Officer (DARO) for the South West Wiltshire constituency at next weeks' election. This means that I'm responsible and accountable for the election in this constituency. We're in the final stages of planning, training the polling station teams and preparing for the verification and count next Thursday. As an election "junky", I'm loving it!
Tomorrow, Friday I'm taking my team to Urchfont to spend a day reviewing where we are as a team; what's going well and what's not working as well as we would wish. We'll then develop our improvement plans together to ensure we're all leading in the same direction. We will also be starting work on some elements of the Business Plan that will take shape over the next 3-4 months. More of this another time.
I spent yesterday morning walking the streets of Melksham with one of our Parish Stewards and the highway repairs team. We were learning about the demand that comes into the service, and designing ways for improving the quality and speed of response to our customers. I love this work; it's real and you always learn something new that can be used to develop and improve the business that we're in.
Thanks for reading. I'll try and speak again next week but as I will have been up all night at the count it may not happen!
Enjoy your long weekend.
Carlton
Tomorrow, Friday I'm taking my team to Urchfont to spend a day reviewing where we are as a team; what's going well and what's not working as well as we would wish. We'll then develop our improvement plans together to ensure we're all leading in the same direction. We will also be starting work on some elements of the Business Plan that will take shape over the next 3-4 months. More of this another time.
I spent yesterday morning walking the streets of Melksham with one of our Parish Stewards and the highway repairs team. We were learning about the demand that comes into the service, and designing ways for improving the quality and speed of response to our customers. I love this work; it's real and you always learn something new that can be used to develop and improve the business that we're in.
Thanks for reading. I'll try and speak again next week but as I will have been up all night at the count it may not happen!
Enjoy your long weekend.
Carlton
Friday, 23 April 2010
Friday 23 April 2010
A great week this week - a combination of moving forward quickly on some of the larger corporate change programmes coupled with some brilliant weather. Topped off with a superb Victoria sponge made by Louise Della Mura from property services for our weekly team and biscuits session yesterday. Thanks a lot Louise. And my new kitchen is almost fitted - last night I was washing up in the bath which is starting to annoy even me! Just the plumbing to go now...
I chaired the Work Place Transformation Board on Tuesday. This board oversees the numerous delivery work streams that make up this programme, which we now believe to be the largest and fastest service and property transformation programme anywhere in the public sector, let alone local government. Many of you will have also seen the Cabinet decision to approve the decant of some County Hall and Browfort based staff to the George Ward site in Melksham while the refurbishment is carried out. Whilst some are very excited about this, I know that others are very worried about how all of this will work. The programme team will now be working hard with individuals and teams to work out the details and to minimise the disruption to our customers, work and personal lives. More of this in future blogs.
David Amos from the Local Government Improvement Network in Scotland visited us on Wednesday. Wiltshire is increasingly being seen as a leader for its successful work on LGR, BMP and systems thinking led service transformation using lean principles. It was good to have some national recognition for this work.
I'm joining the ICT management team at Urchfont today where they are conducting the detailed planning around the in-sourcing of ICT and how ICT supports the work place transformation programme. This is the most important part of this programme, as the flexible use of our office and operational estate all hinges on great, reliable ICT. The first role out of the new kit starts over the next few months as Bourne Hill starts to be fitted out.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
I chaired the Work Place Transformation Board on Tuesday. This board oversees the numerous delivery work streams that make up this programme, which we now believe to be the largest and fastest service and property transformation programme anywhere in the public sector, let alone local government. Many of you will have also seen the Cabinet decision to approve the decant of some County Hall and Browfort based staff to the George Ward site in Melksham while the refurbishment is carried out. Whilst some are very excited about this, I know that others are very worried about how all of this will work. The programme team will now be working hard with individuals and teams to work out the details and to minimise the disruption to our customers, work and personal lives. More of this in future blogs.
David Amos from the Local Government Improvement Network in Scotland visited us on Wednesday. Wiltshire is increasingly being seen as a leader for its successful work on LGR, BMP and systems thinking led service transformation using lean principles. It was good to have some national recognition for this work.
I'm joining the ICT management team at Urchfont today where they are conducting the detailed planning around the in-sourcing of ICT and how ICT supports the work place transformation programme. This is the most important part of this programme, as the flexible use of our office and operational estate all hinges on great, reliable ICT. The first role out of the new kit starts over the next few months as Bourne Hill starts to be fitted out.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 16 April 2010
Friday 16 April 2010
Back to work after my hols, and I'm pleased to report that the weather on the Costa-Frome was excellent. All the better too for not having to navigate Icelandic volcanic ash clouds and millions of people at airports...
This week I spent a morning with the Customer Care Unit management team at their team meeting. We went through much customer demand data that they have been collecting from their lean review and started to understand what it's telling us about how customers are contacting us and the problems they sometimes face. I love this stuff as it represents such an important way of learning about how to improve our work. I recommend this approach to everybody!
I have had the initial KPMG findings for our 2009-10 Use of Resources assessment. I met with the steering team earlier this week to review these findings and plan further work over the next two months in terms of additional case and evidence material which we will have to pull together for the auditors.
I went to Potterne yesterday to meet with senior staff at Wiltshire Fire & Rescue. We're exploring ways whereby we might be able to collaborate on things such as fleet management and maintenance, procurement, and support services. I think there are some very quick wins on the cards here, and it was great to meet colleagues from another part of the public sector who think so too. More on this anon.
Just for information, I have re-started my weekly tea & biscuits sessions for front line staff. Those of you new to DOR may not have heard about these, but it is an opportunity for 5 or 6 front line staff and I to get together over a cuppa to chat about anything at all, how things are going, how we might improve them too. If you'd like to attend, please email Jane or myself.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend, and chat again next week.
Carlton
This week I spent a morning with the Customer Care Unit management team at their team meeting. We went through much customer demand data that they have been collecting from their lean review and started to understand what it's telling us about how customers are contacting us and the problems they sometimes face. I love this stuff as it represents such an important way of learning about how to improve our work. I recommend this approach to everybody!
I have had the initial KPMG findings for our 2009-10 Use of Resources assessment. I met with the steering team earlier this week to review these findings and plan further work over the next two months in terms of additional case and evidence material which we will have to pull together for the auditors.
I went to Potterne yesterday to meet with senior staff at Wiltshire Fire & Rescue. We're exploring ways whereby we might be able to collaborate on things such as fleet management and maintenance, procurement, and support services. I think there are some very quick wins on the cards here, and it was great to meet colleagues from another part of the public sector who think so too. More on this anon.
Just for information, I have re-started my weekly tea & biscuits sessions for front line staff. Those of you new to DOR may not have heard about these, but it is an opportunity for 5 or 6 front line staff and I to get together over a cuppa to chat about anything at all, how things are going, how we might improve them too. If you'd like to attend, please email Jane or myself.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend, and chat again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Thursday 1 April
Well we made it! Our 1st birthday has arrived and I can't believe it's been a year since we formed. Happy birthday everybody.
And what a year it's been - busy and hectic doesn't begin to describe what we've been through and what we've all achieved together. I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you very much. Thanks for your effort, hard work and unstinting commitment to making it all happen, in which ever part of the business you work.
I'm taking next week off for a rest - like many of you. I hope you all have a great Easter, and enjoy your break if you're taking one.
Thanks for reading. Talk again in a couple of weeks.
Carlton
And what a year it's been - busy and hectic doesn't begin to describe what we've been through and what we've all achieved together. I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you very much. Thanks for your effort, hard work and unstinting commitment to making it all happen, in which ever part of the business you work.
I'm taking next week off for a rest - like many of you. I hope you all have a great Easter, and enjoy your break if you're taking one.
Thanks for reading. Talk again in a couple of weeks.
Carlton
Friday, 26 March 2010
Friday 26 March 2010
First of all my apologies for not writing last week. My parents were down from Essex so I took a day off to spend some time with them. I remembered my blog sometime after lunch (and maybe a beer or two) in the middle of Bath. No excuse though!
It's been a week of big decisions in DOR. On Tuesday, Cabinet took the decision to in-source ICT back to the council from Steria. This is hugely important. The council is going through huge change at the moment and this is likely to continue for many years. Work Place Transformation, service transformation, our work on lean, development of Area Boards and accelerating our work with communities, developing closer relationships with our public sector partners (Unitary Plus) mean the requirements from ICT are changing rapidly. We are better placed to improve and develop the service if we have complete responsibility for it. Deborah Farrow is working on the transfer plan and we'll share this with you as soon as possible.
Cabinet also received the draft Corporate Plan and Medium Term Financial Plan. These documents, available on the intranet are well worth a detailed read. They explain what we will be focusing on as an organisation over the next four years, what our priorities will be and how we will fund these. They explain how we will meet the financial pressures in the public sector too, although this work will be continually developed as the national picture becomes clearer after the election. The Corporate Plan will be formally approved by Council in May. My Service Directors and I will now be developing the DOR Business Plan that we will have to put in place to deliver the corporate objectives. We'll share this with you as we develop it during the next few months. Do please have a read and feedback your comments to me.
I'm also pleased to announce that Neil Ward has been appointed Head of Service for Property. Property joined DOR on March 1st, and as John Shorto is due to retire next month we needed to ensure a seamless transition to his successor. As this position will report directly to me, Members made the appointment on Tuesday. I'm sure you will all join me in wishing Neil every success in his new role.
Thanks for reading and we'll catch up again next week.
Carlton
It's been a week of big decisions in DOR. On Tuesday, Cabinet took the decision to in-source ICT back to the council from Steria. This is hugely important. The council is going through huge change at the moment and this is likely to continue for many years. Work Place Transformation, service transformation, our work on lean, development of Area Boards and accelerating our work with communities, developing closer relationships with our public sector partners (Unitary Plus) mean the requirements from ICT are changing rapidly. We are better placed to improve and develop the service if we have complete responsibility for it. Deborah Farrow is working on the transfer plan and we'll share this with you as soon as possible.
Cabinet also received the draft Corporate Plan and Medium Term Financial Plan. These documents, available on the intranet are well worth a detailed read. They explain what we will be focusing on as an organisation over the next four years, what our priorities will be and how we will fund these. They explain how we will meet the financial pressures in the public sector too, although this work will be continually developed as the national picture becomes clearer after the election. The Corporate Plan will be formally approved by Council in May. My Service Directors and I will now be developing the DOR Business Plan that we will have to put in place to deliver the corporate objectives. We'll share this with you as we develop it during the next few months. Do please have a read and feedback your comments to me.
I'm also pleased to announce that Neil Ward has been appointed Head of Service for Property. Property joined DOR on March 1st, and as John Shorto is due to retire next month we needed to ensure a seamless transition to his successor. As this position will report directly to me, Members made the appointment on Tuesday. I'm sure you will all join me in wishing Neil every success in his new role.
Thanks for reading and we'll catch up again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 12 March 2010
Friday 12 March 2010
Friday again and nearly the end of another busy week. Before I start, could I say thank you to everybody who emailed me with their thanks and positive comments about last weeks Team Day. It's so heartening to get positive feedback from so many different and diverse service areas. I really appreciate it.
I was in Salisbury on Wednesday morning with Andrew supporting his sessions meeting staff in the south of the county. I also led the hub meeting where we went through the March Team Wire. There were lots of great questions covering all sorts of topics, and I would encourage others to join these sessions. It's very important for us to discuss the hot issues of the day and answer queries and worries that staff may have, be they related to IT, Harmonisation, Bourne Hill or any other subject.
Yesterday I was in Taunton for most of the day at the RIEP - the Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership. This is a group of officers from all over the South West charged with developing innovative plans and projects for improving innovation, improvement and efficiency of our services. Key items on the agenda were Housing, Total Place and of course the financial challenges that all of our organisations face at the moment and over the next 3-4 years. Wiltshire needs to be fully engaged in this to share best practice between our authorities so we keep ahead of the game. So that's what we'll be doing!
On Wednesday I attended the second Heath & Wellbeing Awards Ceremony in Devizes. This was a celebration of many public, voluntary and private sector initiatives in Wiltshire that seek to support and help make our communities and individuals healthier - both physically and mentally. I have to say that I was blown away by some of the people I met, their stories and what they do to help and support others. It was a very humbling experience.
Thanks for reading; have a good weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
I was in Salisbury on Wednesday morning with Andrew supporting his sessions meeting staff in the south of the county. I also led the hub meeting where we went through the March Team Wire. There were lots of great questions covering all sorts of topics, and I would encourage others to join these sessions. It's very important for us to discuss the hot issues of the day and answer queries and worries that staff may have, be they related to IT, Harmonisation, Bourne Hill or any other subject.
Yesterday I was in Taunton for most of the day at the RIEP - the Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership. This is a group of officers from all over the South West charged with developing innovative plans and projects for improving innovation, improvement and efficiency of our services. Key items on the agenda were Housing, Total Place and of course the financial challenges that all of our organisations face at the moment and over the next 3-4 years. Wiltshire needs to be fully engaged in this to share best practice between our authorities so we keep ahead of the game. So that's what we'll be doing!
On Wednesday I attended the second Heath & Wellbeing Awards Ceremony in Devizes. This was a celebration of many public, voluntary and private sector initiatives in Wiltshire that seek to support and help make our communities and individuals healthier - both physically and mentally. I have to say that I was blown away by some of the people I met, their stories and what they do to help and support others. It was a very humbling experience.
Thanks for reading; have a good weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 5 March 2010
Thursday 4 March 2010
Just a very short blog this week; it's been a manic week in DOR, but at least it's felt like spring which is great.
Firstly, I'd like to welcome all of the Property team to DOR. Led by John Shorto, they officially transferred on Monday, and it's great to have them on board and part of our team. This move will enable us to better establish a fully integrated approach to resource planning across the organisation; people resources, property resources and financial resources all in one place.
The spring Team Day was a great success yesterday. I'd like to thank all the presenters, stall holders, organisers - especially Jo Middleton and Jane Gray - and all of the 650 or so team members who attended. After such a stretching year, it was great to see everybody and to feel the buzz throughout the team, as well as having some time to discuss some of the ideas for future improvement within our team and business.
I attended the Council Tax team "lean review" presentation this morning in Browfort. It was excellent - the team have really understood their service as a system, and now have a great platform from which to begin their service redesign around the customer. Jeannette Young, Phil Ruddle and the whole team should be very proud of themselves.
Thanks for reading, and we'll catch up again next week.
Carlton
Firstly, I'd like to welcome all of the Property team to DOR. Led by John Shorto, they officially transferred on Monday, and it's great to have them on board and part of our team. This move will enable us to better establish a fully integrated approach to resource planning across the organisation; people resources, property resources and financial resources all in one place.
The spring Team Day was a great success yesterday. I'd like to thank all the presenters, stall holders, organisers - especially Jo Middleton and Jane Gray - and all of the 650 or so team members who attended. After such a stretching year, it was great to see everybody and to feel the buzz throughout the team, as well as having some time to discuss some of the ideas for future improvement within our team and business.
I attended the Council Tax team "lean review" presentation this morning in Browfort. It was excellent - the team have really understood their service as a system, and now have a great platform from which to begin their service redesign around the customer. Jeannette Young, Phil Ruddle and the whole team should be very proud of themselves.
Thanks for reading, and we'll catch up again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Thursday, February 25
This week the council approved its budget for 2010-11. It was a long meeting on Thursday but the budget went through quite smoothly. Over £24 million of savings were identified, none of which impact on front line services. The second year business plan commitments for One Council and BMP were exceeded again, and we also delivered over £8 million of savings from procurement activity. The Finance teams and all of the departments have done a great job in preparing the budget.
I attended a refresher of my election training on Wednesday in Andover. I shall be the Assistant Deputy Returning Officer for the Wiltshire South West constituency at the forthcoming parliamentary election, so I needed to brush up on my election legal and process knowledge. It was a great day, although always slightly scary when you realise what can go wrong!
Just a reminder that we are having our Team Day next week, March 3rd. There are over 600 people already signed up but I'm sure we have one or two place left if any are required.
I am in London on Friday meeting up with directors from five other unitaries. We will be exchanging information and ideas about some of the big issues we all face over the coming months. Money and the election will feature highly! It's a good opportunity to check out what others think, and also to test out some of my ideas on them before we develop more formal proposals.
By the way, Avatar was brilliant - I'm a softie for a love story...
See you next week at our Team Day.
Carlton
I attended a refresher of my election training on Wednesday in Andover. I shall be the Assistant Deputy Returning Officer for the Wiltshire South West constituency at the forthcoming parliamentary election, so I needed to brush up on my election legal and process knowledge. It was a great day, although always slightly scary when you realise what can go wrong!
Just a reminder that we are having our Team Day next week, March 3rd. There are over 600 people already signed up but I'm sure we have one or two place left if any are required.
I am in London on Friday meeting up with directors from five other unitaries. We will be exchanging information and ideas about some of the big issues we all face over the coming months. Money and the election will feature highly! It's a good opportunity to check out what others think, and also to test out some of my ideas on them before we develop more formal proposals.
By the way, Avatar was brilliant - I'm a softie for a love story...
See you next week at our Team Day.
Carlton
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Thursday 18 February 2010
My blog is a day earlier today as I'm taking tomorrow off with Tracy and the children. I think I'm being taken to see Avatar, which I had no idea I wanted to see...
I spent this morning at Monkton Park with Andrew Kerr. It was good to see so many people in the three face to face sessions that we held - almost 90 or so people attended. It was good for us to learn about Andrew's background and the reasons for him coming to Wiltshire.
He summarised this as wanting to lead Wiltshire's key goal of stronger resilient communities, through high quality, low cost services, open honest, local decision making and working together for the good of our communities. This vision and strong leadership is something that he wants to build on with us and our members to do three things:
Make partnership a way of life
Make Wiltshire one of the best local authorities in the UK and the best place to work for
Making localism and local determination our greatest strength
He was clear in his belief that Wiltshire can achieve these things in a short space of time, making Wiltshire an even better place to work, play and visit.
Enjoy the rest of the half term break and talk again next week.
Carlton
I spent this morning at Monkton Park with Andrew Kerr. It was good to see so many people in the three face to face sessions that we held - almost 90 or so people attended. It was good for us to learn about Andrew's background and the reasons for him coming to Wiltshire.
He summarised this as wanting to lead Wiltshire's key goal of stronger resilient communities, through high quality, low cost services, open honest, local decision making and working together for the good of our communities. This vision and strong leadership is something that he wants to build on with us and our members to do three things:
Make partnership a way of life
Make Wiltshire one of the best local authorities in the UK and the best place to work for
Making localism and local determination our greatest strength
He was clear in his belief that Wiltshire can achieve these things in a short space of time, making Wiltshire an even better place to work, play and visit.
Enjoy the rest of the half term break and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 12 February 2010
Friday 12 February 2010
This week seems to have flown by as usual. I've been in Salisbury four times in the last seven days and at Monkton Park once so it's been a week out on the road; hub briefings, staff "face to faces", housing inspections and the like. It's been good to meet so many staff and talk with them about the big issues that we're all working on this year. Harmonisation of staff terms and conditions and work place transformation are the big issues of the day! ICT improvement is too and we're well advanced with all three.
I have also spent time with the new Chief Exec. this week discussing the budget for this year. It went to Cabinet yesterday and went through smoothly. Next week we take it to Scrutiny which will be a lively debate I think and then it goes to Council on February 23 for final approval. The Finance teams and departments have done a great job this year in preparing the budget; both the process to develop it and the final report are the best I've seen since I came to Wiltshire.
Preparations for our spring Resources Team Day are now well underway (March 3). The morning session is now full - with just over 300 people coming and we have around 220 booked in the afternoon. If you haven't signed up then please do so; it's a great opportunity for us all to pause and reflect on the work we have completed during the last 6 months and what we've learned. It's also a great opportunity to talk about the challenges ahead that we face. I look forward to seeing you all there.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend - and half term for those of you on holiday next week. Speak again next week.
Carlton
I have also spent time with the new Chief Exec. this week discussing the budget for this year. It went to Cabinet yesterday and went through smoothly. Next week we take it to Scrutiny which will be a lively debate I think and then it goes to Council on February 23 for final approval. The Finance teams and departments have done a great job this year in preparing the budget; both the process to develop it and the final report are the best I've seen since I came to Wiltshire.
Preparations for our spring Resources Team Day are now well underway (March 3). The morning session is now full - with just over 300 people coming and we have around 220 booked in the afternoon. If you haven't signed up then please do so; it's a great opportunity for us all to pause and reflect on the work we have completed during the last 6 months and what we've learned. It's also a great opportunity to talk about the challenges ahead that we face. I look forward to seeing you all there.
Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend - and half term for those of you on holiday next week. Speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 5 February 2010
Friday 5 February 2010
This week has been dominated for me by our preparations for the 2010-11 budget and our Use of Resources assessment which will take place in March.
The budget will be considered by Cabinet next week and then debated and approved by Council later in the month. The Finance teams have been pulling this together for several months with the support of all of the departments. It's been a slick process this year and the overall result is, I think excellent. More details of the content and highlights in future blogs as the budget is reviewed by members and approved.
Our Use of Resources assessment, conducted by our external auditors - KPMG is an important piece of work. We were assessed as a 2 score last year (out of 4), on a harder assessment regime introduced for the first time. I'm seeking to secure a 3 score this year, and to achieve this about twenty of us are preparing case studies and key lines of enquiry (sometimes called KLOEs) to demonstrate the progress that we've made in the last year.
One key part of this work is our updated anti fraud and corruption policy. This will be shared with the whole organisation on The Wire today and highlights for all staff our policies and procedures around fraud and corruption. I encourage you all to read this short document to familiarise yourselves with the contents and changes.
Yesterday, The Service Directors and I spent some time together working on the Business Plan for Resources for the next four years. This work, to be published in early April sets out how we will deliver the objectives in the Corporate Plan and importantly summarises the likely changes which we will all be involved in over the coming years. More of this too in future blogs.
Thanks for reading, have a good weekend and talk again next week
The budget will be considered by Cabinet next week and then debated and approved by Council later in the month. The Finance teams have been pulling this together for several months with the support of all of the departments. It's been a slick process this year and the overall result is, I think excellent. More details of the content and highlights in future blogs as the budget is reviewed by members and approved.
Our Use of Resources assessment, conducted by our external auditors - KPMG is an important piece of work. We were assessed as a 2 score last year (out of 4), on a harder assessment regime introduced for the first time. I'm seeking to secure a 3 score this year, and to achieve this about twenty of us are preparing case studies and key lines of enquiry (sometimes called KLOEs) to demonstrate the progress that we've made in the last year.
One key part of this work is our updated anti fraud and corruption policy. This will be shared with the whole organisation on The Wire today and highlights for all staff our policies and procedures around fraud and corruption. I encourage you all to read this short document to familiarise yourselves with the contents and changes.
Yesterday, The Service Directors and I spent some time together working on the Business Plan for Resources for the next four years. This work, to be published in early April sets out how we will deliver the objectives in the Corporate Plan and importantly summarises the likely changes which we will all be involved in over the coming years. More of this too in future blogs.
Thanks for reading, have a good weekend and talk again next week
Friday, 29 January 2010
Friday 29 January 2010
CLT will be discussing Systems Thinking, or Lean as some people call it on Monday. So I thought I'd share some my views on the subject with you today.
The big differentiator with systems thinking method is that it starts with obtaining knowledge about how your organisation is actually functioning. Other methods assume that the problem to be solved is known. But people working inside organisations often have a fragmented view of their work, unaware of how the complete system functions. They are also unlikely to have accurate data on the exact level of overall service their customers are receiving. These two factors mean that without better analysis the correct problem will not be identified.
People who have worked for many years in an organisation are naturally sceptical when it is suggested to them that they do not fully understand how their own business works or should work. It is this challenge to your assumptions about “good management” that is the hardest thing to accept. It is counter-intuitive, requiring leaders to experience it through normative learning first hand. You can’t lean this from reading.
The starting point is to assume that your organisation is full of waste. The need is to identify this waste so it can be removed. This removal of waste is how the apparently conflicting goals of cutting costs, improving service and having happier staff are achieved.
While there are many different types and flavours of management, the dominant model in the UK’s public sector can be termed ‘command and control’. This approach does work but it is inherently very wasteful. If you have spent your working life in a command and control environment you will probably assume there is no other way to manage. It then is logical for you to try to improve results by just being better at ‘command and control’. Unfortunately applying more of the same usually makes matters worse.
The key difference is that “command and control” organisations are driven from the top. A goal is set of say 3% cost reduction (Gershon Review, 2003) or of using IT to improve efficiency (Varney Review, 2006) and the organisation is obliged to respond to achieve the arbitrary target. The problem is that the target is set by people separate from the work and with no knowledge of how the work is carried out. Instead of engaging the workforce, a premium is placed on their compliance and how they perform against the target. This channels their ingenuity away from serving customers to achieving the target. The staff constantly look upwards for direction rather than outwards to their customers. This is the root cause of much bad service and low levels of innovation in the public sector.
Systems Thinking is a profoundly different way of seeing the world that is diametrically opposed to command and control, reductionist approaches to management. Seddon (2007) summarise it like this:
This systems thinking approach is continually developing, having evolved from over 20 years experience of interventions in the private sector and 10 years experience of public sector service organisations.
Organisations and people who become interested in systems thinking have discovered it to be a powerful method for radically transforming the way that they work. Many have found this journey to be the most stimulating experience of their careers.
Systems thinking can often seem controversial and uncomfortable as it challenges many of the core paradigms of management. This is because once a new way of seeing things that works has been learnt, it is impossible to accept management mythologies that have never delivered.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and talk again next week,
Carlton.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Friday 22 January 2010
Now the snow has gone, our Highways Team have the challenge of fixing the numerous pot holes and other road defects that occur when water gets into the surface of the road and freezes - breaking open the road. There is a lot of poor press, both national and local at the moment with the condition of the UK roads. In Wiltshire, our four depots have filled at least 1,800 potholes in the last three days. This is a tremendous performance, and truly customer focused as we seek to address the issues caused by the bad weather. The Highways Team have been conducting a Systems Thinking or Lean review of this part of the service over the past year. The service has been redesigned against customer purpose and customer demand which has led to the elimination of waste and this incredible performance. Well done and thank you to the whole team!
As an organisation, we need to expand this approach to performance improvement and quickly move on with all services adopting a similar approach. It works very well, results in delighted customers and better performance and most importantly will deliver the cultural shift that we all want in our new organisation.
I met with around 50 staff from planning earlier this week to explain some of the detail around the Harmonisation Programme; that is the harmonisation of staff terms and conditions. It's always good to meet large groups of staff and hear the questions they have direct. I just want to reiterate that every member of staff will be having the opportunity to meet with their manager face to face, in their teams before February 10 to go through the details of this important work. If you don't know when your session is, please ask your managers quickly.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
As an organisation, we need to expand this approach to performance improvement and quickly move on with all services adopting a similar approach. It works very well, results in delighted customers and better performance and most importantly will deliver the cultural shift that we all want in our new organisation.
I met with around 50 staff from planning earlier this week to explain some of the detail around the Harmonisation Programme; that is the harmonisation of staff terms and conditions. It's always good to meet large groups of staff and hear the questions they have direct. I just want to reiterate that every member of staff will be having the opportunity to meet with their manager face to face, in their teams before February 10 to go through the details of this important work. If you don't know when your session is, please ask your managers quickly.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and talk again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 15 January 2010
Friday 15 January 2010
Another snowy week but at least it appears to be going now. Well done to all our staff who have performed so valiantly; keeping roads open, schools open, vulnerable people supported in their homes; operating our call centres to the public, paying benefits and a thousand other key roles. It has been interesting and satisfying to see the press reaction to all of this. There seems to be a widely accepted view that the Council did a great job. Well done everybody.
I visited the Bradley Road Hub this week. It was a good turn out with about 12 managers present. First we discussed Team Wire, focusing on the harmonisation programme of terms and conditions. There are over 40 terms and conditions to harmonise so it's going to take most of this year to get to a negotiated recommendation that the organisation and unions can put to staff. All staff will be having a face-to-face team meeting with their managers over the next four weeks to discuss the details of the harmonisation programme and to address any questions or worries that staff may have. It's worth repeating here that this process affects all staff, even those that are currently on the old WCC terms and conditions, and it's also not about cost reduction. The pay bill is likely to increase due to harmonisation.
I spent the rest of the afternoon with the Revenues & Benefits "lean" team at Bradley Road. This teams comprises members from all four hubs. They are coming to the end of their review of Council Tax and will be presenting their findings and recommendations to senior management, including the members next month. I was very impressed by the enthusiasm and knowledge that the team had built up. Their radical recommendations on service redesign will deliver significant performance improvements to our customers and reduce our costs.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and speak again next week.
Carlton
I visited the Bradley Road Hub this week. It was a good turn out with about 12 managers present. First we discussed Team Wire, focusing on the harmonisation programme of terms and conditions. There are over 40 terms and conditions to harmonise so it's going to take most of this year to get to a negotiated recommendation that the organisation and unions can put to staff. All staff will be having a face-to-face team meeting with their managers over the next four weeks to discuss the details of the harmonisation programme and to address any questions or worries that staff may have. It's worth repeating here that this process affects all staff, even those that are currently on the old WCC terms and conditions, and it's also not about cost reduction. The pay bill is likely to increase due to harmonisation.
I spent the rest of the afternoon with the Revenues & Benefits "lean" team at Bradley Road. This teams comprises members from all four hubs. They are coming to the end of their review of Council Tax and will be presenting their findings and recommendations to senior management, including the members next month. I was very impressed by the enthusiasm and knowledge that the team had built up. Their radical recommendations on service redesign will deliver significant performance improvements to our customers and reduce our costs.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and speak again next week.
Carlton
Friday, 8 January 2010
Friday 8 January 2010
Happy New Year. I hope that everybody had a good Christmas break and are back at work a little more relaxed than we finished last year. I had swine flu for the first half of the Christmas period which was an experience...
2010 has started with the weather dominating our business this week. I spent some time with the Customer Care team yesterday understanding our plans to cope with the number of calls coming into the business, and earlier in the week I visited Dave Small and his team at the Middlefield Learning Disability Centre in Chippenham. This is the centre that we plan to co-locate into the Chippenham leisure centre later this year. I have to say that I'm always blown away by the professionalism, tenacity and overall customer focus of our teams and staff. Both teams really bring to life the vision and ambition that we have for this new council. I know that with people like this on our side, we can achieve everything we need to this year and in the future.
January is always the time when we are finalising the budget for the next financial year. This years process has been the smoothest that I have known here in Wiltshire -well done Finance - and I'm pleased to report that we have a balanced budget which we will be reviewing with the Executive during the next few weeks. This is a great position to be in given the uncertainty nationally that we all hear and read about most days.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton
2010 has started with the weather dominating our business this week. I spent some time with the Customer Care team yesterday understanding our plans to cope with the number of calls coming into the business, and earlier in the week I visited Dave Small and his team at the Middlefield Learning Disability Centre in Chippenham. This is the centre that we plan to co-locate into the Chippenham leisure centre later this year. I have to say that I'm always blown away by the professionalism, tenacity and overall customer focus of our teams and staff. Both teams really bring to life the vision and ambition that we have for this new council. I know that with people like this on our side, we can achieve everything we need to this year and in the future.
January is always the time when we are finalising the budget for the next financial year. This years process has been the smoothest that I have known here in Wiltshire -well done Finance - and I'm pleased to report that we have a balanced budget which we will be reviewing with the Executive during the next few weeks. This is a great position to be in given the uncertainty nationally that we all hear and read about most days.
Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton
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