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