Thursday 7 March

I have mixed feelings this morning; England were hammered on Day 2 of the first test against New Zealand which doesn’t bode well for the Ashes later this year, but I have now lost just over 2 stone in 7 weeks which is good. Three more to go, and I must buy a suit that fits for the staff awards next Tuesday. Speaking of which I’m really looking forward to seeing many of you in the new Atrium at County Hall to celebrate the achievements of so many colleagues over the past year. Reading the nominations was an inspiring and humbling experience.


Over the last week or so I have attended four staff engagement sessions that Maggie Rae organised for Community Services; Salisbury, Chippenham, Devizes and Trowbridge. Over five hundred staff attended and it was good to speak with the team and hear their ideas for improvement and innovation over the next few years. I always worry that as a team – all 5,000 of us – we will run out of ideas of how to improve services for our communities, clients and customers. I needn’t have worried, and I was so impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment to doing things differently in the future.

Tomorrow, Maggie, Carolyn and I are spending a full day together to work on the draft of the new Business Plan. When the new members are elected in May, we want to have an analysis of the current situation the country and county are in together with a series of options for members to pursue to deliver their policies, priorities, ideas, and manifestos. This is exciting and really gets the creative juices flowing. More on progress in future blogs.

This morning I am meeting with the CEO of the Police & Crime Commissioners Office to explore ways in which we can support each other to enable delivery of the Police and Crime Plan, and to ensure the Police and Crime Panel – a type of scrutiny function that many of our elected members sit on – works well. I’m then being filmed for a short video on mentoring young people, something that I enjoy a lot. Not sure about being filmed though!

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