Business Expo and an update from Cabinet

A fun week this week, especially yesterday when I spent most of the day in Salisbury at the Business Expo 2016 event which we ran in partnership with the City Council and others. It was good to see so many old friends from numerous organisations and to catch up on what’s happening, the challenges and opportunities ahead and how we might collaborate to ensure business, the public sector and voluntary sector work together to ensure Wiltshire is stronger and can face the challenges ahead.

The biggest business challenge I heard, and facing us right now, is skills and education including attitude to work. Many organisations told me that. We are working hard within our Economic Development team on this issue with the Local Enterprise Partnership, the schools and colleges and new initiatives such as our City Deal “Higher Futures”. This is targeted at brokering level 4 and above qualifications to military service leavers and others to prepare them for the commercial sector. It was great to meet the team on their stand in the market place.

On Tuesday Cabinet approved the asset transfer which some of us have been working on for over a year. This includes multiple buildings, land, street scene services such as shop mobility, toilets and landscape maintenance transferring to the City Council. Local councils are the right guardians for these services which they can shape and tailor to the needs of their communities with those communities. The city council will decide in July if they wish to take on this opportunity. I hope so – seize the initiative as I always say.  

To those of you who are busy in Monkton Park opening and scanning postal votes ahead of the PCC election on May 5 can I thank you. I shall pop in to see you all later this morning. And to eat your chocolate.

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

Elections and appraisals

Easter is now behind us, the evenings are lighter and I’m enjoying my bike outside now. My first time trial of the year is in two weeks and I’m hoping to get under 25 minutes for 10 miles. I’ve been training all winter so fingers crossed. I’m trying to shed another 4-5 kg just to be sure.

 

We’re now in full swing with preparations for the May 5 Police & Crime Commissioner election and the June 23 EU referendum. Thank you to all those of you who have volunteered to work on both these important events (over 1,000 staff, ex staff and others). It will be fun as always, especially as we will be counting overnight and not finishing until very late (or very early if you prefer). The elections team is doing a fantastic job preparing as always. Candidates are now nominated and we’re printing ballot papers, poll cards and the like. I shall be leading a training evening in Devizes next Monday for count supervisors and others so see some of you there.

 

This is the time of year for appraisals, although personally I prefer to have a continuous conversation throughout the year about performance, behaviours and aspirations as well as any challenges emerging. I have my formal appraisal next week with the leader so I have spent some time this morning preparing my objectives, outcomes and performance measures. I want to encourage you to do this too. Every member of staff should have a formal appraisal so if you haven’t had yours for ’15-16 please ask your manager. The new grow system on the intranet is a great tool to enable this.  

 

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