Autumn is here ....

Autumn is here and we won the test series against India which was excellent. The subsequent one day performances have been lamentable, so let’s hope we will win today’s final match to salvage something from the summer.

I spent yesterday in Salisbury touring the various buildings and meeting staff at Milford Street (customer services) and Bourne Hill. It was good to catch up with the issues in the city and hear all the news and views. The co-located Police and Council services in Bourne Hill looked impressive. I spent some time with the City Council too discussing our joint plans for any flooding in Salisbury this coming winter. It’s always good to plan and rehearse in the dry months. The key action here is that we will have a fully defined flood plan for the city by the end of October.  

Today I have further discussions with our Police partners about our strategic partnership and how we develop that further to the benefit of the county and both organisations. We have single IT, transformation and programme office teams now but we wish to explore further opportunities to share and collaborate. More on this anon.

As usual at this time of year we are starting to plan next years' 15-16 budget. Despite a general election next May, early indications from all political parties are that funding for local government next year will be cut further by around 10%. This means we are having to work up proposals and assumptions for elected members that will enable us to reduce our budget by around £30 million. More on this anon too.

Speak again soon. 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.

Carlton