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
Thursday, 29 July 2010
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
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