Monday 4 April 2011

The Leader of the Council, Cllr Jane Scott and Andrew Kerr, CEO have outlined the major elements of the Business Plan for the next four years; investing in key front line services; protecting services for our communities and the vulnerable and making savings to fund both of these activities. Our team has a key role to play in delivering all aspects of this vision. As we set off on the next phase of our journey, I want to share with you my new mission for our team. This mission statement is very important to me as the leader of this team, and I want to explain to you all what it means to me. The reason that it is important is that I hear a lot of poorly thought out assumptions being made about what others call “back office” services. I hate that phrase as for me it makes us sound like a second rate service that adds little value to our communities and citizens. The fact of the matter is that we are as much part of the front line as any other service – the front line would grind to a halt without us – just see what happens when the ICT goes own at a leisure centre. I don’t want this poor thinking, based in flimsy evidence to dictate what happens to this team or our council over the next few years. If I look at those public sector organisations that are struggling at the moment, they tend to be those that have believed some of the direction and incentives from central government, the private sector and the numerous audit bodies and who have outsourced, or shared or separated support services from other work. Our systems thinking work shows that this is often a road to poorer service and higher costs. The in-sourcing of ICT is evidence that outsourcing doesn’t always work. That’s why this mission is important to me. Some of this comes from my head and some from my heart. Either way our task over the next few years is to deliver it. There are three parts, and the words in red are key for me: Department of Resources (DOR) mission Our team is recognised as the best DOR team across all sectors. Everything we do is focused on our customers. We are high performing, low cost and we use Systems Thinking to continuously learn and improve our work – developing innovative and creative solutions. Our management are highly visible and skilled in leading our teams and supporting the organisation to shape and deliver their services. We communicate openly and well, throughout the organisation. We enjoy our work and create a culture where we have fun together and deliver success. Over the next few weeks, I would like you to meet in your teams and discuss it. Ask yourself some key questions: What does it mean to your team? How will you fulfil these objectives? What do your customers want – both internal and external? How will you know who is the best? How will you become the best? Your Service Directors and Heads of Service will be developing this with you over the next few weeks so that each service is clear about how this mission will be delivered for the people of Wiltshire by our team. Thanks for reading and talk again next week. Carlton