Budget and operation update

Well what a week this has been. It started with the budget at council on Tuesday. It was a long eight hour meeting with over twenty items on the agenda, only one of which was the budget. This received a long four hour debate, and for a local government junky like me made for fascinating listening. It is important that officers understand the thinking, views and opinions on all sides of the chamber, and the budget speeches and subsequent debate give the best opportunity in the municipal year to do this. If you haven’t attended at least part of a council meeting then you should.

There were powerful cases made for both putting up and maintaining existing levels of council tax to our residents. This was linked to the funding pressures which we are receiving from central government and the resultant impact that this has on much needed community services throughout the county. Taking out £30m (10%) from the budget has a big impact on many services and their users, and each year these changes get more difficult to deliver.

It will be tough like this for a further five years, so we are going to have to get used to this sort of challenge and meeting it with creative, innovative ways of doing things differently. And of course we will need to stop some services completely. We will need to make much better use of the assets in our communities – the people, their will and enthusiasm to help as well as the voluntary organisations, other sources of funding, and businesses to create new ways of delivering services which our residents value.

Finally this week ended with a trip to the RUH this morning. I have been waiting for a hernia repair for 28 weeks now and I got the call last night to go in for some pre-op. tests. So all being well I’ll be having the op. on March 9. It needs doing well before the general election and well before my first competitive cycling event, both in May. I shall just have to watch my weight while I’m off the bike for a month.

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

Positive staff survey outcome

Today we have announced the results of the staff survey that many of us took part in before Christmas. Sixty per cent of us took part in the survey which is a high response rate for any organisation.

The headline results are shown below, and I’m pleased that we have improved out results in 9 of the 10 sections of the survey (one area stayed the same). This is despite the fact that we have had to make significant changes affecting every member of staff as a result of central government’s austerity programme which has meant that the council has had its income reduced by over 40% since 2010. These changes impacting staff include revisions to terms and conditions, working arrangements, office accommodation and car parking. All changes that usually have a negative impact on how we feel about our role and organisation.

Of particular note is that we have improved staff engagement by 5% - and we have seen a corresponding drop in those staff reporting that they are disengaged. This is vitally important to our communities and customers who receive services from us.

Thank you to everybody who completed the survey. It allows us as a management team to start working with you all and your teams to develop actions together to continuously improve our organisation and business.

	Average positive response		Change
Section	2014	2012
Change	65%	61%	+4%
Your role	63%	63%	0
Culture, wellbeing and safety	77%	73%	+4%
Reward and Recognition	62%	58%	+4%
Communication	60%	57%	+3%
Management and Leadership	53%	50%	+3%
Learning and Development	57%	52%	+5%
Employee engagement	56%	51%	+5%
Teamwork	75%	72%	+3%
Customers	70%	68%	+2%

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