Morning everybody and my apologies for not blogging for a couple of weeks. I had to take a bit of time off last week when my wife and youngest son decided on separate emergency admissions into the RUH at the same time! All fine now thank goodness.


This week has been busy and it was good to spend two full days at Monkton Park with Cabinet and meeting a lot of staff based there. It made me realise what a poor building County Hall is and how I’m looking forward to many of us moving into the new end of the building over the next six months or so. It will really help to break down some of the communication barriers that exist between teams because of the cellular design of the current building.

I met with three junior managers this week for separate coaching sessions; it is so important that we grow our next generation of senior managers and leaders for what is one of the toughest tasks around – leading people. We worked on the role of managers to lead the development of organisational vision, service strategy, operational management and tactical delivery – the four key elements to the role of management. I find this one of the most exciting parts of my job, and it was great to see one of our service directors this week sign up to the coaching course run by south west councils.

I have also spent some time this week with my finance colleagues developing the detail of how we will deliver our budget for the coming year 12-13 as well as starting to prepare for how we will develop an affordable budget for 13-14. This may sound early but I think fortune favours the prepared mind as Louis Pasteur once said.

This morning I’m meeting up with one of our councillors who wants to explore some innovative ideas that she has for her market town. It will be fun to work out ways to turn her ideas into reality quickly to enable her community to develop and grow with Wiltshire Council as an enabler.

Last meeting of the week is a Scrutiny Task Group review of the planning transformation programme. Always a feisty affair, but adds real value to our work in the council.

Then it’s a quick getaway to pick up my eldest son and his friends to celebrate his 17th birthday tonight (first driving lesson in the morning – I’m terrified!) and watch some F1 practice...

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

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Morning all, I’ve been a little behind with my blog over the last week or so. No excuses, my apologies. Can’t believe it’s March already and spring is definitely here. I’ve even cleaned my bike and taken it out a few times to blow away those winter cobwebs. This will only end in tears at some point...

It was a big week last week with Council approving the budget. I just want to thank all of the finance teams and others who have been involved in this over the past six months or so. At some points it felt like it was never ending but in the end we have a robust budget that protects services for our communities and meets the saving that we needed to make in a thoughtful and considered way. Thanks and well done all.

I had the pleasure of visiting the MOD Porton Down facility last week with the Local Resilience Forum (LRF). The LRF are the group of public sector officers from many organisations that plan and rehearse for emergencies that might happen in our community. The visit was important to enable us to familiarise ourselves with what is a large site and also to gain an understanding of the type of work conducted there and the risks involved. It was fascinating. I hadn’t realised that we have a community of world class scientists and engineers – more than 2,000 in total – on our door step. Talking to colleagues from other branches of government, we were able to join up some of the objectives of the various organisations and explore new ways of strengthening the work that employs so many people in Wiltshire. A great day.

This week sees a return to more normal duties after the excitement of the budget last week. I’m visiting the economic development and spatial planning teams in Shurnhold on Thursday – pop along if you have a few minutes please – and then going on to Browfort to meet managers and staff in our weekly hub meeting. I also have one-to-one coaching sessions scheduled with three members of staff this week which is always fun and a real learning opportunity for me.

I’ve been picking up messages that some staff might lack the confidence to use our Lync software. Lync is a Microsoft product on most of our computer desk tops enabling us to stay in contact and communicate with colleagues in real time between offices and different sites without the need to use email, the telephone or more importantly travel. I’m using the system a lot myself and with practise it’s become second nature. I urge you all to experiment with the system and if necessary dedicate some time at your teams meetings for some informal training.

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