Friday 17 February

It’s been a fun week this week – out and about meeting staff from across the county and of course England are 2-0 up in the ODI series against Pakistan with the Essex lad Cook scoring back to back centuries in both matches.

On Tuesday I was in Shurnhold meeting the planning teams from the west and the east. It was a good opportunity for those informal discussions after the big transformation day we held recently. Lots of great questions, some real concerns about the future which I hope were answered with honesty. I have had several emails from staff since which I always like.

Yesterday I was in Bourne Hill with Sue meeting groups of managers and staff from the south of the county. Again we all learned a lot and it was inspiring to see staff from different departments coming together and able to sort many of their issues between them. Our role to facilitate this and ensure our teams connect across the organisational structure is important if we are to offer joined up services to our customers. There were concerns regarding the building which Mark from the FM team did a great job in handling and the other area of most concern was over the uncertainty surrounding the admin review. We have a paper coming to CLT on Monday on the admin review so we will have much more detail about this to share with you over the coming weeks.

Today I’m spending most of the day with the highways and street scene teams in Kennet House, Devizes. We’re looking at options around how we deliver these services in the future whilst ensuring we maximise the involvement of our community areas in shaping and making decisions related to their needs. Interesting stuff, or at least I think so! I should probably get out more...

Earlier this week we discussed the plans and issues around the Diamond Jubilee and Olympics. These events this year are going to be massive in Wiltshire and will involve so many different staff from across the organisation. I see this as a great way to develop our cross boundary working and support our culture development as well as having a good old party in our communities. More on this over the coming weeks.

For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again in a week or so.

Carlton