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
Thursday, 25 February 2010
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
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