Friday 28 January

Another very busy week as we strive to finalise the budget and business plan which are due to be published early next week. I was in Browfort all day on Tuesday; initially at Cabinet and then at an extended Cabinet-Liaison meeting working on the budget and business plan detail. We are still receiving significant new information and changes in grant assumptions from central government which are difficult to assess this late in the process and cause delay and uncertainty. The Finance teams are doing a great job coping with these.

The ICT team continue to improve the performance of the new in-sourced service. Our first time fix rate has steadily improved again this week and I am pleased to announce that the team have been jointly awarded “Team of the Month” in our staff awards as a result of their incredible performance. This is well deserved and I would like to thank the whole team for all of their hard work and commitment to delivering such a great performance. I would also like to thank our customers who have been so helpful through such a tricky period of change for the team.

I have been interviewing for the Finance Heads of Service this week with Michael Hudson and others. I always enjoy these as it is probably the most important part of the leadership role, although I’m sure the candidates wouldn’t agree! Well done to the successful managers; Caroline Bee - Head of Procurement & Finance, Andy Brown - Head of Finance and Matthew Tiller - Chief Accountant. Now the difficult work starts...

We have agreed the date and broad content for our next Resources Team Day. The date is April 1 and we will hold it again in Devizes (no jokes about the date please – I did try and change it but the venue and some speakers couldn’t be co-ordinated). We’ll focus on the outcomes of the budget and business plans and what this means for DOR over the next few years. Please put the date in your diaries now.

Thanks for reading and talk again next week.
Carlton