Budget consultations begin

"Well hasn’t January flown by! February starts at the weekend and the days are getting noticeably longer. Roll on spring…

Yesterday we published the detail of the 2015-16 budget online. This is available to everybody in the county as this week we start the formal consultation on the proposals made. As I have said before, we have to save £30m next year and the budget proposes some radical recommendations to do that. I would encourage all staff to spend a few minutes reading those proposals and to give us your feedback. It’s important that we hear the views of staff.

Last night we held the first budget consultation meeting in Chippenham. There were about 60 members of the public in attendance (it was good to see some young people there too) and I was reassured from the extensive question and answer session that most people recognise how tough it is right now in the public sector; balancing the opposing requirements of increased demand and need (particularly in services covering adults, children, waste and highways) with significant central government grant reductions of 13% plus next year. Also of interest was the view that Wiltshire Council was very open and transparent about these pressures. Nobody in the audience came up with any radically different views about how to meet this challenge and all the proposals seem to be supported by most. We move on to Trowbridge tonight, Devizes and Salisbury next week so do please come along.

Over the last week or so I have met several hundred staff from many different services. I like this part of my job the most. I attended the Planning & Economic Development knowledge series last week which brings together over 100 staff from across those services to explore how they can support other services in delivering their objectives. The staff induction event was well attended by over 70 staff too, where the leader and I discussed the organisation, how we work together and the objectives in the business plan. Yesterday I spoke at the Highways and Transport managers and team leaders session where they spent a day developing their strategic & delivery plans for the next year. It was inspiring to hear the views, opinions and questions from across the organisation.

I continue to train on my bike every day for my first road time trial on May 13. It seems a long way off but it will be here before I know it…

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”