Thank you...

A very short blog this week ahead of the Christmas and new year holidays.

I would like to say thank you to you all for your hard work, commitment and the passion you show to the work and challenges that we have faced this year. Together we have achieved a great deal, taken some tough decisions and established a positive starting point for the new council and delivery of the new business plan.  

For those of you working over the holiday period – thank you. I am on call December 27-30 so we may be in touch but hopefully not!

Speak soon and enjoy your Christmas and new year with your families and friends.

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

One of the highlights of my local government career

Last Friday evening was one of the highlights of my local government career – playing Santa with Carolyn at the fostering and adoption Christmas party in Devizes. I have to admit to being pretty nervous beforehand, but thanks to all of our wonderful staff who put in so much effort to make the evening go with a swing, and the look of pure fun and enjoyment on the faces of 120+ children, the evening really rocked.

I thought you might like the picture below:

Speak soon and enjoy your Christmas shopping. 

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

Becoming paperless

It was great seeing 1,500 of you at the staff forums over the last couple of weeks. And thank you for all the questions, emails and helpful suggestions that you’ve sent me since. I must have had 50 plus and I really appreciate the thinking and ideas for developing our organisation.

As 3,000 of you will be moving locations and or desks over the next few months I thought I’d share my thinking about going paperless. We have to achieve this to make the refurbished offices work for us. I’ve been at this for some time, and I’ve reduced the amount of paper I use and carry around hugely over the last year or so since moving into the open plan office. But I’ve always had a few sheets. And some. Until three weeks ago. I am now completely paperless (except for the odd script I’m handed for staff awards events and the like...).

I must say it’s truly liberating. And I’ve had to employ a couple of simple rules to make it work for me which I’ll share with you.

1. Never print any papers or agendas for meetings. Keep everything electronic and use Word files, Excel files and .pdf’s to make the sort of notes that you would have written on the papers. You can now highlight text, make notes and add those cheeky comments in the margins about the writer’s grammar; all sorts of things straight into the electronic file. It really is that simple.

2. Ditch the pen and notebook (something I’ve always carried since I was small). This has been the secret for me. Just don’t carry a pen and you can’t use paper. I felt naked without my pens but if I carry them I use them.

3. Read papers on the screen. I didn’t think this would work but actually it does with practice. It’s just like using a Kindle and after a week or so it’s as easy as holding a book or a paper.

4. Use the notes function, reminders function and Outlook diary on your laptop or smart phone for your to do lists, appointments, etc.



I hope these are helpful – they’ve worked for me. Have an experiment with all of the above and let me know what you think. It feels odd at first but within a week or two it works very well.

Speak soon and enjoy your Christmas shopping.

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

'Coming home'

It’s a busy week this, with six staff forums and a heads of service management meeting covering around 1,500 staff. We’re half way through these sessions and it has been great to hear from many staff with their questions, challenges and observations about how we move the organisation forward. We have updated on the recent senior management restructure, the new business plan 2013-17 and the headline messages from the peer review. It’s important that we all get involved in these sessions because it’s how we can understand what’s happening, share our concerns, and learn together. That way we are stronger and better able to meet the challenges ahead.

I am writing this blog sitting in the refurbished council chamber in front of our 98 elected members. I have a real sense of  'coming home' and it’s great to see democracy in action in the proper place; the debating chamber. I would like to thank Julie Anderson-Hill and her team for delivering such a great facility, ahead of schedule and on budget. The facility has electronic voting and webcasting and we shall see the members using these facilities next year to really open up what goes on to all our communities and staff.

On Friday this week I am attending the autumn ACCE meeting – the association of county chief executives. It’s a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues and share learning on the major issues that we collectively face; safeguarding, highway maintenance, economic growth and financial sustainability as well as future development of the Local Government Association (LGA).

Speak soon and see you in Chippenham tomorrow and Salisbury on Thursday if you are attending the staff events.

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

Thursday 24 October 2013

I thought this week I would share with you some of my thinking about management and leadership in local government. At a time of rapid change in response to significant challenges, good management and leadership is vital to the success of the organisation and wellbeing of our staff.


For me management and leadership are inextricably linked. I believe that good managers are good leaders and that you can’t lead without being able to manage ― for me there is a credibility gap with leaders who can’t manage. Why would you follow a leader without credibility? This is probably controversial as the literature tends to separate the two. Leadership and followership are linked for me.

Good management is about performing a role covering three distinct but related domains; task, team and individual. Definition and achievement of the task in hand, developing the team as a collective, and developing individuals and one’s self to learn and improve. I like to think about these three domains existing in a model of management and leadership comprising four levels; vision, strategy, operations and tactics. The manager — leader has to operate at all four levels and in the three domains to be successful.

Leadership then goes beyond this into the realm of change. Change related to improved performance, better customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and enhanced staff wellbeing and learning. Change is the important differentiator between management and leadership; change is a psychological journey to be led rather than a task to be managed.

The skills required to manage and lead are closely related. They include a passion for and a skill to communicate, displaying the appropriate behaviours, being competent technically but also across the whole system ― not just the immediate part of the organisation. Leaders need to be conversant in systems thinking competencies. Above all they have to deliver; deliver change, and deliver the performance demanded by customers, citizens and politicians.

It’s a multi-faceted role but the bottom line is that it is my job. I am employed to lead. Everything else is secondary. It’s about all of the following:

• Attracting, growing and developing the best people and setting them free to deliver

• It’s something to be measured and worked at continuously to improve ― forming the major part of my annual CPD

• It’s lonely, complex, difficult, challenging, frustrating and hugely exciting and thrilling

• It’s about caring; for staff, customers, the organisation and yourself

• It’s about challenging the status quo with a dogged desire to improve things

• It’s about detail as well as big picture and also simplifying complexity for others

• Taking risks and being comfortable with prolonged exposure to those personal and organisational risks

Above all, it’s about having a vision for the future that you know will be better than today.

The world of management and leadership is changing because the world is changing. The global debt and government deficit crisis means that spending is massively constrained in the public sector and will be for another ten years. Customers and citizens expect better service, customised to their personal preferences all at a cost that represents better value to them ― as buyers or as tax payers. This requirement is driven by an increasingly sophisticated and developed consumer mind-set and market where the customer or client is in full control. In this world, local authorities are having to move from a model of “we’ll tell you what you can have” to a model of “what do you need and how can we help to provide this?”. This is a difficult cultural and behavioural shift for staff, managers and leaders to make if they have only ever experienced the former.

Key challenges in this new world include: doing more with less; doing different things with less; innovation and creativity, and how to fund & exploit it; better data and information and how to use it; exploiting new technology and ways of working; personal resilience to continual change and pressure; communication and influence — with customers, clients, stakeholders and partners and co-production and how to work with communities and individuals to enable service provision. Leaders who don’t understand this and merely propose service cuts are failing.

Local authorities are undergoing the biggest change that they have ever experienced. Funding reductions of 30% plus already and the same again to be announced over the next few years make the job of leadership very difficult. Most managers in local government have never experienced a challenge of this magnitude and it is becoming the discriminating factor between personal success and failure.

In this respect, key challenges for leaders include: finding a common purpose to galvanise effort and spirit in organisations which deliver 350 plus largely unrelated services; managing complexity between the interrelated parts of the organisation and the wider community systems within which the organisation operates; developing communities to co-deliver services to reduce unsustainable levels of demand; innovation, including cross sector innovation and how to leverage this to the benefit of communities and the organisation to improve performance and reduce costs and better management and leadership competence ― both political and officer to inspire staff and communities to make the journey of change that society is calling for.

The major challenge is for leaders to move on from their professional background and to embrace the profession of management & leadership. In a world where whole system thinking will differentiate between those that succeed and those that fail, the following, I believe, will be the new leadership competencies: the ability to think in terms of systems and knowing how to lead systems; the ability to understand the variability of work in planning and problem solving; understanding how we learn, develop, and improve; leading true learning and improvement; understanding people and why they behave as they do; understanding the interaction and interdependence between systems, variability, learning, and human behaviour; knowing how each affects the others; and giving vision, meaning, direction and focus to the organisation.

It will also be important to be aware of the ‘experts’, particularly those selling simple ideas as the panacea to address and meet the problems of today and tomorrow. In addition, new delivery models such as outsourcing, commissioning and staff mutuals have a role to play but they are not the solution or even a major part of the solution to the problems facing the public sector over the next 10 years.

Finally, leadership is lonely. I try to be prepared for the mental and physical effects of this and seek-out sources of support ― from friends, a coach or a mentor. Learn from sport where the best have great support systems in place.

Speak 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

Friday 11 October 2013

This week has been full on as they say. Scrutiny Management Select Committee on Tuesday in Monkton Park is always a good session where we get into some meaty issues concerning elected members and our communities. This week there were good debates and actions around the new business plan, performance management in the organisation and staff morale. We will be developing further our approach to performance management over the next quarter to sharpen the approach and ensure we deliver our objectives well. The data on staff morale from the last staff survey and the very recent external independent peer review will be compiled and presented to the next meeting in November for further analysis, discussion and conclusion. My own view on the latter, speaking with many staff recently is that it’s very mixed as is the case in any large organisation.

I have decided to restart my “tea and biscuits” sessions with front line staff each week. I plan to meet a group of around 5-6 staff from various areas each week to talk about whatever they wish to speak about. I find these a real learning opportunity personally and the feedback from those attending in the past has been very positive. So if you’d like an invite please email jane.gray@wiltshire.gov.uk.

The recent launch of the new Staff benefits website has seen a fantastic uptake – 10% sign up to Wiltshire Rewards in 4 days - 532 people registered and that was before the Shurnhold and Bourne Hill road shows. Spend on the site in four days was £12,889 with total savings already going to our staff of £815. With Christmas on the way, sign up soon.

And finally, I managed to fluke the September Manager of the Month in the Wiltshire fantasy football competition jointly with Andrew Manning. Not sure how I’ll spend my £2.50 winnings yet.

Speak 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

Friday 4 October 2013

It’s been a good week I think.  Last week's Peer Review went very well and we’ll share the outcomes with you when we get the final report in a few weeks. One of the most encouraging findings for me was the peers' comments about staff culture and morale. They tested this right through the organisation and found high levels of engagement, morale and knowledge around our vision, objectives and most importantly how we work together. The new buildings are helping here as are new systems and processes underpinned by some good management practice. No room for complacency and always opportunities to improve.

I managed to fluke third place in the Wiltshire fantasy league football August manager of the month competition, missing out on a £5 prize by just 33 points. Thanks to Kate Knowles for organising the league. I may have had some help with team selection (from Maggie and Carolyn).

I met with the Chief Constable and his Deputy earlier this week with my CD colleagues to talk about our shared transformation programme as well as the important issues of child sexual exploitation and domestic violence. We are focusing on these issues as they are vitally important for us to work in partnership to improve outcomes in the county. We’re making good progress.

Speak again in a week or so.

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

Friday 20 September 2013

In my last blog I described the major elements of the new Business Plan, the “what” if you like. Equally as important is “how” we set about acheiving our objectives. To do this we have developed a set of eight principles:

The council is a community leader, not just a service provider
                                                                                                
The council has a unique and distinct role as Wiltshire’s democratically elected body. Our councillors' champion a shared vision for all public services, act as a strong advocate for people and communities and make sure Wiltshire gets a fair deal nationally. We work effectively with partners such as Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the police, fire, housing associations and academies, the voluntary and community sector to achieve better outcomes.

We are efficient and provide good value for money for our residents

We make sure everything we do or fund has a clear business case and adds value. We budget based on the contribution our spending makes to our vision, rather than starting with savings to be made. We reduce future spending requirements by investing in high quality, preventative services targeted at people who need them. We look at the hidden impact of financial decisions on individuals and communities, especially unintended financial costs that can prevent people from accessing support services.

We put outcomes for people and places first

We measure our success as an organisation by the outcomes achieved. We work innovatively and effectively with partners and focus on the bigger picture. We share resources with other public services and use technology, buildings and other assets flexibly to maximise value.

We develop a new relationship between public services and communities

We help communities stay active and become more self-reliant by doing things ‘with’ them, rather than ‘to’ them. We are inclusive and make it easy for everyone, especially hard to reach groups, to participate and engage with their community and public services. We understand the impact of our actions and deliberately design our services to promote positive, healthy behaviour. We limit the interference of public services in people’s lives and we help communities and local organisations experiment with new innovative solutions to local issues.

We design all our services with residents and communities

We involve communities and people of all ages in developing l council services (including outsourced services) and design our services to meet local needs and aspirations. We use systems thinking principles in every community and every service.

Our services work well, are joined up and easy to access

Our services work together and with other public and community services. All our services measure their performance against the expectations and experience of their customers. We make it easy for people to access services in locations that make sense to them. We are not attached to a specific way of running services. We make decisions based on data and evidence and we focus on making services work better for customers and think in terms of customer rather than services or professions.

We have and we will grow outstanding leaders and managers

Our councillors, directors and managers are outstanding leaders who communicate our vision and philosophy in a way that is understood by everyone. They work together and turn cabinet’s vision into reality. We develop our current and future leaders and provide clear career paths for high performing and  staff with potential at all levels. We also encourage and develop young people as future community leaders.

Our staff are innovative and have a can-do approach

We have a proud, committed workforce and attract talented employees through our excellent reputation and strong employer brand. Our staff, which includes people employed by other organisations, are innovative, open to challenge, act on feedback and learn quickly from mistakes. They have a can-do approach and constantly look for more effective and joined up ways of meeting customers’ needs. We will develop the capacity of staff in all our services to work with communities and listen to the views of all residents, including young people.

It would be good to hear you views on these principles.

Speak again in a week or so – after our peer review!

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

Friday 30 August 2013

It’s been a while since my last blog as I have been away on holiday for  a couple of weeks. It was great to get away and spend some timing swimming, cycling and eating with Tracy and the boys. Back on my diet now though! To those of you returning from holiday I hope you had a great time too. To those of you about to go, have fun.

Next Tuesday full Council will meet to debate, amend and approve the new business plan for Wiltshire Council 2013-17. This document sets out what we seek to achieve over the next four years and importantly how we will go about delivering it. I’m looking forward to hearing the debate from all sides of the chamber. When drafting the plan, we have strived to incorporate members priorities and policies, especially those which emerged from the election in May as well as feedback from citizens, clients, customers, businesses and visitors to Wiltshire. It’s always tricky to balance these.

I have summarised the key policy aspects of the plan here. Subject to Council next week, these will be our 12 priority areas for action in the county.
 
1.    Invest additional money between 2014-17 to reduce the historic backlog in highways maintenance
2.    Stimulate economic growth, including tourism, and create additional jobs in partnership with the LEP
3.    Further enhance the role of area boards, developing innovative community-led approaches to designing and delivering services
4.    Provide opportunities for every child and young person to improve their attainment and skills so they can achieve their full potential
5.    Continue to improve our safeguarding services to protect the most vulnerable in our communities
6.    Invest to refurbish council housing and encourage the development of new affordable homes, including supported living in rural areas
7.    Build on the work of the Military Civilian Integration Partnership and maximise the benefits of the Army Rebasing Plan
8.    Delegate cost neutral packages of land, services and assets to town and parish councils
9.    Create a campus opportunity in each community area
10.    Integrate public health at the heart of all public services
11.    Working innovatively to deliver at least £120m budget cost reductions over the next four years
12.    Develop the knowledge, skills, behaviours & leadership of our workforce, managers and councillors

For me , the how we go about delivering the above is just as important. Next week I’ll share some thinking about how we go about delivering what is an exciting agenda during some tough financial times in the public sector.

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

Friday 2 August 2013

Not a good day yesterday in the third ashes test (unless you are Australian of course). Fingers crossed for a better day today for our bowlers.

I thought I would update you on the thinking behind last week’s announcement of a strategic partnership between Wiltshire Police and Wiltshire Council. I know there are numerous views, rumours and assumptions being made about this so perhaps I can give my views and thinking.

When I speak with residents, customers, businesses and communities across Wiltshire they tell me that joining up public sector services is a priority. They describe being “handed off” between different agencies, services, having to visit multiple buildings to secure services for themselves and their families. They describe this as bureaucratic and wasteful – both in terms of their time and their taxes which fund it.

The partnership with the Police is a first step to join up some of these services and facilities around our shared customers and service users. The overarching vision from the elected leaders of both organisations, Jane Scott and Angus Macpherson is to improve services whilst reducing costs. It is not a merger of the organisations, a takeover or indeed anything else. The Chief Constable, Pat Geenty and I are clear that we will only share services where there are clear data and evidence from our systems thinking reviews to demonstrate that sharing will deliver improved performance and reduced cost. The shared Police/Council facility at Monkton Park is working very well, and is evidence of what can be achieved when we think differently and take some careful risks.

I think this partnership is very exciting. For both organisations to continue to deliver great service during a time when our funding is being cut dramatically requires different thinking and greater innovation. And that’s what this is all about. I’m sure it will work well if we approach it with creativity and disciplined thinking but I’m also sure that we will make the odd mistake. This happens when you try new things. But we will learn quickly and develop the right approach for Wiltshire’s residents, businesses and communities. 

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days. Only a week to go until my holiday...

Carlton

July 23 2013

“It is not easy being a manager in the midst of continuous change that may ultimately lead to handing over control, Wiltshire Council corporate director Carlton Brand tells David Allaby


Leadership in public services today is increasingly about being prepared to take a leap of faith, and the way Carlton Brand talks about Wiltshire Council there can be little doubt of this authority's belief in transforming the look of local government, making savings and redirecting funding to frontline services.

Since the move to unitary status four years ago the council has 600 fewer staff and 92 fewer buildings. A serious systems approach to service and management redesign challenged everyone's role. It led to more than 200 managers taking voluntary redundancy and, 18 months ago, the removal of the council chief executive's job.

“An awful lot of activity and cost had no impact on the customer," he says. "With a 28 per cent reduction in revenue you start to see the huge opportunity to take out costs that are not benefiting the people, to take out what doesn't add value."

But it is revealing that Brand also says Wiltshire does not obsess about budget cuts: "If you want to find the answer to big problems, worrying about the money will not help you find the right solution."

The model of three corporate directors and no chief executive would, it was believed, deliver maximum savings while enabling the council to embed a less service-based perspective.

"At this level any leadership model can work or fail," he says, "and there is evidence for successes and failures with any model in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Leadership success is a function of the quality of relationships that exists between the key players, their knowledge, expertise, understanding and integrity as a single team with a common purpose and goals. With these ingredients, Wiltshire's model works very well."

Brand, with a doctorate in engineering, brought his management expertise to local government nine years ago after 20 years in the car industry working in the US, Japan and Europe. He describes Wiltshire's ambitious reform as "a massive journey, and after six or seven years I don't see the journey as anywhere near halfway.

"The more we see on the way, the more the raft of possibilities opens up. We have people asking when all this change is going to stop, but it's about continuous change, and it is difficult to be a manager in this type of environment. It is the big challenge for the public sector as we are on this journey for the next 10 or more years."

Fundamental to that journey is shifting control from the centre. Leadership that has grasped the benefits of shared responsibility at the top in county hall can only look to disperse similar principles and build social capital outside.

"Do we really let communities run things themselves?" he questions. "Local politicians may currently control a £1bn council, but in the future that large single body may be replaced by a series of offerings run by a completely different mix of people.

"We are starting to work with the RSA on possible governance models – a big factor in the future of local government. Clinging on to control is less tenable in the long term, and the council's executive and senior members have moved on this."

Wiltshire is developing community campuses providing integrated services. "The 18 communities across our county have a proliferation of buildings, centres and purposes," says Brand. "We are pulling all that together into a single site per community with a new building and services being run by a single team."

Seven of the new campuses are under way. "It's an ambitious joining up of services and behaviour change, underpinned by technology and budget pressures," he says. "They are the building blocks of transformation, leisure, libraries – we are one of the few authorities opening libraries at the moment – spaces for vulnerable people, nursing and GP services, and essentially anything that the community wants to be included will come together.

"Community areas have been up and running for four years, but when the new campuses are built we have no preconception of how they will operate. We could run them all ourselves – we probably couldn't afford that in the long run – or we could say to the community you do everything to make these services work to your needs, or there's something in the middle. We are tapping into the RSA's innovative policy side to work with communities."

Council staff who were spread across 95 offices are now based in just three. There are 1,200 people working from county hall, from just 600 desks. It forces people into the community and a fundamentally different way of working – we are going to the people, says Brand.

Wiltshire continues to break through traditional boundaries. It has recently moved its police and social teams in together. "It's simpler, more reactive and there are savings on buildings and communications, but you don't start from that perspective," he says. "It's a big challenge to local government thinking. The pressures are considerable and it's easy to do the wrong thing. But you need that leap of faith."



Thanks and regards,

Carlton

Friday 5 July 2013

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last blogged so my apologies for that. The diet and guitar lessons are going well so I’m looking forward to the heat wave we have predicted over the next week or so. I’ve even built a new BBQ...

Last week saw the chancellor publish his spending review for government, including the reductions agreed for local government. In a nut shell we will have 10% less funding each year over the next four years of the business plan period. This is in line with our predictions and modelling so no real surprises which is good. It gives us a challenge though – to identify and save around £30m per year in each of the next four years (£120m in total).

The part of the chancellors statement that intrigued me was his insistence that public sector workers should be paid placed on performance related pay (PRP schemes). This happens in some private and public sector organisations. As somebody who was on a pay for performance scheme in the private sector, and who’s researched the case for and against widely I have concluded that they just don’t work.

Some people and organisations site the evidence, but there isn’t any. The number of organisations using PRP does not constitute evidence that it actually works, but this is a lazy argumment. PRP is based on an assumption that people need to be bribed to perform to their best. Well I’ve never come across people in either the private or public sectors that this applies to. Staff genuinely want to do a good job. The systems they work in then contrive to stop this. As does poor management. These are the problem that need addressing and you can’t solve either with PRP. Alfie Kohn in his book, Punished by Reward makes the case beautifully, and with real evidence that they don’t work. The clincher for me was discovering that the evidence for PRB was based on experiments with rats conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. I don’t accept that experiments on rats 60 years ago should form the basis for work based people policy for the 21st century. But maybe that’s just me.

And this leads me to conclude that much social and political policy right now is poorly thought out and based on ideology rather than sound evidence. This is what I mean when I observe that the biggest problem we face now as a country and the public sector is not budget reductions – savings £30m per year is not that difficult – but it is around thinking and behaving differently. The shoddy thinking that promotes PRP will also stop us innovating and exploring new and more effective ways of delivering the public services which communities need. Thinking differently is the biggest challenge that we now face.

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton

14 June 2013

A busy week; I’m within a couple of pounds of 4 stone lost and now have 8 chords to my name on the guitar. Progress on all fronts...

Yesterday Carolyn, Maggie and I spent a full day together developing our strategic plans and thinking around the big challenges which we face over the next four years. The new council draft Business Plan will be published early next week to go to scrutiny later in the month and then on to Cabinet next month. This plan reflects the political priorities of our elected members and the findings from our strategic needs assessment – the underlying data and evidence about Wiltshire, it’s communities, residents and businesses and where we need to focus to deliver our vision of more resilient communities.

The other major element of the plan is that it highlights the size of the financial challenge ahead. We think that we will have to identify and deliver cost savings of £120m over the next four years – around £30m per year. This should be set within the context of our projected spend over the same period of £3.6 billion. Challenging but achievable in my opinion.

A prime area of focus over the next few months will be to realign our transformation programme to deliver the above. Key issues for me are how we ensure that every member of staff and every service is involved and also how we align our cultural and behaviour change to this. This is the biggest challenge I think we face – not financial, but thinking and behaving differently. More on this anon.

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton

Thursday 6 June 2013

I am back this week after a week off – only four days but it felt like much longer which is always good. And the sun was out every day but one which was a bonus. I bought myself a guitar as one of my regrets in life is not being able to play an instrument. So that’s about to change. A week into the adventure I can now play six chords. Some way to go but I have some lessons planned...


I was reflecting on leadership while I was away, as I tend to do (I know I should get out more) and thought I would share my summary of the key aspects with you. Leadership is going to play a vital role over the next four years in the public sector in general but particularly in Wiltshire. It’s worth remembering that leadership comes at every level in the organisation. The most successful organisations have leaders everywhere. So for me it’s about the following:

Key issues of performance and leadership in the individual:

1. the skills you bring to the role
2. your behaviour as you do the job

The Leadership continuum and key roles:

1. Leaders - "what should we be doing?"
2. Managers - "how should we do it?"
3. Administrators - "why we can't do it?" I’m only joking. Good admin is vital for success

Key influences of behaviour of people in the organisation:

1. What leaders do when things go wrong
2. What leaders pay attention to
3. What behaviour they role model

The role of the great leader:

1. Challenge the status quo
2. Create freedom for people to innovate and experiment
3. Recognise good performance and reward it
4. create a fraternity
5. Give meaningful purpose to work

Finally, to be a leader you need to have some followers. It’s always worth checking out who is following you and why. If you have no followers you’re not a leader. And leadership is not a popularity contest; if you want to lead you will be unpopular to some, but not to most. You have to be comfortable in yourself to live with this.

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton

Friday 24 May 2013

It’s been a great week this. A day in every hub – two days in Chippenham and I’ve been able to meet and speak with a lot of staff, elected members and partners (mainly the Police and Police and Crime Commissioner). It is always good to see and hear what is going on and to take the opportunity to learn what we need to improve.


This morning a number of my team presented the transformation programme to members as part of the induction programme. I know that I’m involved in this, but it is easy to forget just how innovative, ambitious, brave and risky this is. It was very well received with some members commenting that it is truly ground breaking. As if to cement that comment, I’ve just finished a ‘phone call with Peter Hetherington from the Guardian who is writing an article about the programme and how it is driving economic growth in our county. It’s good to get national recognition for all the hard work by the team and all of our staff.

I am taking a few days furlough next week – going to the seaside in Somerset. So now you know that we’re in for rain and wind for a week. I can’t wait. I need to buy a guitar too... I want to learn to play. Better late than never!

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton

Friday 10 May 2013

I can’t believe it’s a week since the election. The member induction programme is well underway; almost all of the 98 members have been sworn in and we have completed sessions with them on law and governance, and today in Monkton Park we are holding the first of two safeguarding days – extremely important as members become corporate parents to our looked after children. It’s been a good week because I’ve been able to visit all of the hubs and speak with lots of staff.


Tuesday next week sees the first full council for new members. This is where the leader, cabinet members and chairs & members of all the committees are announced or allocated. Keep a sharp eye out to find out who you will be working with. Carolyn, Maggie and I will be addressing full council at the start of their session to outline the challenges ahead for the organisation and the elected members. I’m looking forward to this.

My weight loss is progressing well – now nearer 4 stone off than 3 which is great. I’m missing cheese the most...

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.

Thanks for reading and talk again in a few days.

Carlton

Tuesday 7 May 2013

Last week was election week in Wiltshire and we now have our 98 new members for the second unitary council. There are 27 new members amongst the intake which is good to see. I had the privilege of returning nearly 30 members as Returning Officer in Trowbridge on Friday. It was good to meet them and briefly hear their views and ambitions for the future.

I’d like to thank the hundreds of staff involved in ensuring the election process was well planned and delivered. It was great to see so many staff, ex-staff and members of our communities getting involved to make this a success. They worked incredibly hard, for long hours and by the time we finished around 7pm on Friday night, they were all pretty tired. A great job by the whole team.


This week the new member induction programme starts with a full day in the Civic Centre Trowbridge to swear in some new members. This session will also be repeated in Salisbury and Chippenham. We also have sessions on safeguarding, corporate parenting, governance and training for full council which is being held next week. A packed and exciting week ahead!


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.


Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again in a week or so.

Carlton