Friday 21 January

This is the first full week of running our complete ICT service end-to-end and I must say we’re quietly pleased with the way the first seven days have gone. Our first-time fix rate (how many calls we can fix at the first point of contact from our customers) is well above the level that Steria handed over to us on January 13. I spent some time at Bradley Road on Monday with the team, and it’s fair to say they’ve done a brilliant job. It will take us some time for the service to settle down and I thank our customers for their patience over those calls that do take us some time to fix or if the line is engaged when they call. We’re still learning about how many people we need on the helpdesk at peak times.

Yesterday I attended the Resources Scrutiny Select Committee with around 12 elected members. There were two major items on the agenda; a review of where we are with our HR plans especially the status of the management review and a series of presentations on our procurement work, especially the status of the £9 million we plan to save in 2011-12. Both reviews went well with some robust questioning and scrutiny from all sides.

Talking about HR, our new HR Direct web facility will be going live on January 31. I had the opportunity to review and test the new site in the test environment yesterday and I have to say it looks brilliant; very easy to use and intuitive too. When I see functionality like this it reminds me that some areas of Wiltshire Council really are becoming cutting edge in our industry. Well done to all involved.

England have just bowled out Australia for 230 in the second ODI, so fingers crossed for the next four hours!

Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton