16 September 2011

Well who was it that said a week is a long time in politics – Harold Wilson I think. He was right! It’s been a busy couple of weeks in Wiltshire since we last spoke.

We’ve been working hard on preparing the key elements of next year’s budget – Michael is leading this and has set out clearly what is expected from each service area in terms of savings next year. The council’s 4-year Financial Plan clearly sets out the need for us to save £36 million next year. For Resources and Transformation this means we’re now generating ideas and proposals to evaluate over the next few weeks to enable us to balance our budget for 2012-13. More detail on this over the next few weeks.

I attended the Resources Select Committee yesterday, at Monkton Park, where they were scrutinising the Transformation Programme. I presented a paper and current status of our work which then led to an hour of questions and answers about the detail. Always a robust affair, it was great as it challenged our thinking and will help in developing how we can better achieve our objectives.

Whilst at Monkton Park yesterday, I visited the Elections team. We’re in the middle of the annual canvass at the moment so the whole team were very busy. I also has a quick look at the proposed new parliamentary boundaries. Some big changes in Wiltshire which could move from 5 constituencies to 4.5 – sharing one with North Dorset. Controversial stuff. All comments have to be back to the Electoral Commission by early December.

CLT has met a number of times over the last week. The team is working very well together and driving the organisation forward to deliver the political priorities, policies and actions determined by our elected members in the business Plan. The Extended Leadership Team – including all the Service Directors – met this week also to ensure we were all focused on delivering the objectives that we have agreed and we all agreed that whilst it may be unsettling for some as the organisation decides on its future leadership model, it is business as usual. The Leader of the Council, Jane Scott also attended this session and led a full discussion about our priorities and work over the next few weeks and months and reiterated the need now to deliver the plans we have in place . This was very well received by all attendees.

I’ve got the “Twitter bug”. If you would like more regular blog updates, usually daily and in only 140 characters, you can now follow me on Twitter - @drcarltonbrand. How’s that for good value!

Talk again in a week or so...

Carlton