A snowy start to the day today so I hope you’ve all had safe journeys to work or are using the home working ICT that most of us now have. I’m typing this at my kitchen table as I contemplate going outside to scrape the snow and drive to Trowbridge.
Assuming I get to Trowbridge I’m meeting about 170 staff from our planning service this morning. We’re launching the transformation programme for that service today with an interactive event for all staff in the service to shape and influence the work programme for the year. This is a major priority for me this year as planning is such an important part of delivering our vision for more resilient communities, and ensuring we attract more jobs into the county and keep the ones we have during what is a difficult economic climate.
Yesterday we had the joint scrutiny meeting of the proposed 2012-13 budget. It was a lively meeting with some great questions from members as they prepared themselves for the full debate on the budget at Council on 28 February. The finance and services teams have done a great job once again to prepare this in such a readable and accessible format. Well done all.
Earlier in the week I held my monthly managers meetings with around 100 managers from the teams I lead. We shared some learning around the forthcoming planning transformation programme, devolving service decision making to communities (highways have done a great job on this), the overall transformation programme including campuses and a quick session from me on communication and how we might understand and improve it. This last item was raised by many staff in the recent forums we held.
I now have to write a quick letter to the Local Government Chronicle about councils with no Chief Executive. They really don’t seem to understand how it all works so I’ll have another try...
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
Friday, 10 February 2012
Friday, 3 February 2012
Friday 3 February 2012
The last 10 days or so has been great – really buzzing, all apart from the Second Test which I am still in shock over. We’ll see what today brings the England team.
Last weeks staff awards were terrific. It was great to see nearly 300 staff attend, and some of their stories were humbling indeed. The 2012 awards start again this month so please get your entries in. It makes a big difference to how we all feel during some tough times.
I presented the Planning Service Transformation Programme to Cabinet Liaison earlier this week. This is a very readable document that summarises all of our plans for the development of the service over the next 12 months or so including some radical ideas to accelerate development of our culture and behaviours work which I shall personally lead with Brad. We are getting all the staff together next week – some 160 or so – to share and discuss this with them and most importantly to get their input into the future direction of the service. This is exciting and Cabinet fully indorsed the plan developed by Brad and his team.
We completed the staff forums yesterday in Chippenham. We’ve met well over 2,500 people over the last few weeks from across the county. It has been a privilege to see such engaged staff and listen to their observations and questions about how we become an even better organisation delivering with our communities. So many great ideas. The big issue that I have heard is that of inter-team communication; service X knowing and understanding what service Y is doing and why. We need to think very had about how we address this. It’s all about connecting people I think. We’ll have to come up with novel and effective ways of encouraging this at a time when people are very busy. Twitter anybody?
Whilst at Chippenham yesterday we held our first hub session for managers and staff based in the locality. It was a great conversation about many subjects and so good to spend some quality time with front line staff. I am really looking forward to these weekly sessions in the hubs. If you would like to come along then please contact that communications team and they can let you know dates and times. It’s very informal!
I am spending all day today with the HR team working on the development plan for people throughout the organisation and the next steps on our culture change journey. I find this stuff fascinating and so important as it will be the work that starts to deliver on many of the comments, questions and observations that have come out of the staff forums over the last month or so. Watch this space for updates.
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
Last weeks staff awards were terrific. It was great to see nearly 300 staff attend, and some of their stories were humbling indeed. The 2012 awards start again this month so please get your entries in. It makes a big difference to how we all feel during some tough times.
I presented the Planning Service Transformation Programme to Cabinet Liaison earlier this week. This is a very readable document that summarises all of our plans for the development of the service over the next 12 months or so including some radical ideas to accelerate development of our culture and behaviours work which I shall personally lead with Brad. We are getting all the staff together next week – some 160 or so – to share and discuss this with them and most importantly to get their input into the future direction of the service. This is exciting and Cabinet fully indorsed the plan developed by Brad and his team.
We completed the staff forums yesterday in Chippenham. We’ve met well over 2,500 people over the last few weeks from across the county. It has been a privilege to see such engaged staff and listen to their observations and questions about how we become an even better organisation delivering with our communities. So many great ideas. The big issue that I have heard is that of inter-team communication; service X knowing and understanding what service Y is doing and why. We need to think very had about how we address this. It’s all about connecting people I think. We’ll have to come up with novel and effective ways of encouraging this at a time when people are very busy. Twitter anybody?
Whilst at Chippenham yesterday we held our first hub session for managers and staff based in the locality. It was a great conversation about many subjects and so good to spend some quality time with front line staff. I am really looking forward to these weekly sessions in the hubs. If you would like to come along then please contact that communications team and they can let you know dates and times. It’s very informal!
I am spending all day today with the HR team working on the development plan for people throughout the organisation and the next steps on our culture change journey. I find this stuff fascinating and so important as it will be the work that starts to deliver on many of the comments, questions and observations that have come out of the staff forums over the last month or so. Watch this space for updates.
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
Friday, 20 January 2012
Friday 20 January 2012
I feel it’s been a good week this week – if somewhat busy. Good except for the cricket of course. I’m waiting for a call up for the second test (in my dreams).
We held the first staff forum yesterday and it was good to talk with so many staff – 750 by the end of the day. There were some tough, challenging questions which I always like to hear as it shows deep thinking about the issues we face collectively. I always feel this is a good sign! The behaviours framework was well received and colleagues were keen to understand how we will implement it and ultimately ensure staff and managers aspire to meeting it. We will try and role model those behaviours and we expect others to do so too. I’m sure we won’t always get it right and we will need your help to identify when this is the case. In the next month or so our revised appraisal process, aligned to our new values and behaviours will be shared with us all and ready to use. I’m looking forward to the staff sessions in Melksham and Salisbury next week so if you’re not booked to attend please do so quickly. It will be good to see you.
Some information hot of the press. Our customer satisfaction has risen by 17% in the last survey to 56%. This is the percentage of Wiltshire residents who rate themselves as completely or very satisfied with us. This is great news and demonstrates that what we are doing, and how we are doing it is having a real impact on communities and individuals. There is no room for complacency though, as we can always be better but it’s great feedback which we can learn so much from. I’ll share more details behind this headline figure in future blogs.
I attended Scrutiny Committee as I always do earlier in the week. We had some good discussion around the new leadership mode (lots of member support) and our budget position in year for 2011-12 amongst other things. I was delighted that one of the members raised the issue of staff work load and some of the long hours being worked. All other members recognised this issue too and discussed their concern over staff welfare and the need to focus on this. I was able to confirm that we do just that but I was pleased that the issue was raised and recognised. We need to take this issue very seriously and where we see work-life balance issues becoming unbalanced, we must address them quickly.
For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.
Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again next week.
Carlton
We held the first staff forum yesterday and it was good to talk with so many staff – 750 by the end of the day. There were some tough, challenging questions which I always like to hear as it shows deep thinking about the issues we face collectively. I always feel this is a good sign! The behaviours framework was well received and colleagues were keen to understand how we will implement it and ultimately ensure staff and managers aspire to meeting it. We will try and role model those behaviours and we expect others to do so too. I’m sure we won’t always get it right and we will need your help to identify when this is the case. In the next month or so our revised appraisal process, aligned to our new values and behaviours will be shared with us all and ready to use. I’m looking forward to the staff sessions in Melksham and Salisbury next week so if you’re not booked to attend please do so quickly. It will be good to see you.
Some information hot of the press. Our customer satisfaction has risen by 17% in the last survey to 56%. This is the percentage of Wiltshire residents who rate themselves as completely or very satisfied with us. This is great news and demonstrates that what we are doing, and how we are doing it is having a real impact on communities and individuals. There is no room for complacency though, as we can always be better but it’s great feedback which we can learn so much from. I’ll share more details behind this headline figure in future blogs.
I attended Scrutiny Committee as I always do earlier in the week. We had some good discussion around the new leadership mode (lots of member support) and our budget position in year for 2011-12 amongst other things. I was delighted that one of the members raised the issue of staff work load and some of the long hours being worked. All other members recognised this issue too and discussed their concern over staff welfare and the need to focus on this. I was able to confirm that we do just that but I was pleased that the issue was raised and recognised. We need to take this issue very seriously and where we see work-life balance issues becoming unbalanced, we must address them quickly.
For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.
Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again next week.
Carlton
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Thursday 12 January 2012
Week two and it’s already getting very busy. Which actually is a good thing for me personally I think, now that I‘ve had a rest over the holiday period.
Yesterday I met with 120 managers from across the teams for whom I have line management responsibility. We did some work together on our priorities and objectives for 2012 as well as talking about communication within and across the teams. This is a priority for me. We also talked about the role of managers and leaders and my expectations related to this. I am a great believer that stock can be managed, but people need to be led. Here are my “must dos” for myself and other managers:
• One Council, one team (win-win)
• We balance where we spend our time; task – team – individual (it’s 40-40-20 for me)
• We communicate well (Face to face, social media, all the methods)
• We’re visible
• No surprises
• We always meet our budget (we sort our pressures)
• Staff, Communities and Customers are our focus
• Innovation, new ideas, take some risks (have some fun)
• Help and support each other
• Everybody has an appraisal. That means everybody.
• We run this organisation like it was our name above the door
• Management is a profession – we need to treat it as such
Also yesterday, we held our first performance – budget – risk meeting with the Cabinet members for my services. We reviewed our balanced score card of key performance indicators and our budget position. We plan to do this every six weeks or so throughout the year. This will be very important as we’re a group of services totalling well over £100 million in expenditure linked to some key priorities for members and our communities across the county. We’ll need to ensure we stay on track to deliver.
I chaired my first meeting of group leaders last night – the leaders of all the political groups in the council. This was a great experience and something I have been looking forward to for some time. There were some knotty constitutional issues on the agenda as well as some key policy items too. It was good to see so much consensus and a focus on what’s best for the people who live, work and visit our county.
For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.
Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again next week.
Carlton
Yesterday I met with 120 managers from across the teams for whom I have line management responsibility. We did some work together on our priorities and objectives for 2012 as well as talking about communication within and across the teams. This is a priority for me. We also talked about the role of managers and leaders and my expectations related to this. I am a great believer that stock can be managed, but people need to be led. Here are my “must dos” for myself and other managers:
• One Council, one team (win-win)
• We balance where we spend our time; task – team – individual (it’s 40-40-20 for me)
• We communicate well (Face to face, social media, all the methods)
• We’re visible
• No surprises
• We always meet our budget (we sort our pressures)
• Staff, Communities and Customers are our focus
• Innovation, new ideas, take some risks (have some fun)
• Help and support each other
• Everybody has an appraisal. That means everybody.
• We run this organisation like it was our name above the door
• Management is a profession – we need to treat it as such
Also yesterday, we held our first performance – budget – risk meeting with the Cabinet members for my services. We reviewed our balanced score card of key performance indicators and our budget position. We plan to do this every six weeks or so throughout the year. This will be very important as we’re a group of services totalling well over £100 million in expenditure linked to some key priorities for members and our communities across the county. We’ll need to ensure we stay on track to deliver.
I chaired my first meeting of group leaders last night – the leaders of all the political groups in the council. This was a great experience and something I have been looking forward to for some time. There were some knotty constitutional issues on the agenda as well as some key policy items too. It was good to see so much consensus and a focus on what’s best for the people who live, work and visit our county.
For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.
Thanks for reading and we’ll talk again next week.
Carlton
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Happy New Year to everybody. I hope you all had a good Christmas break and return to work refreshed. Many staff worked over the Christmas period to provide much needed services to our communities so thank you all for your hard work.
The holidays coupled with the start of a new year always gives me time to reflect on the last year and plan the coming one. This year was no exception, although it did take me rather longer to start thinking about 2012 than it usually does!
We have much to do this year. It would be too long a list to highlight everything but that stand out items for me include the following;
• Working together on our corporate culture, values and behaviours to embed these. Ensuring us as leaders and managers exemplify these too.
• Continue to devolve services, work, decisions and assets to our communities
• Encourage and facilitate economic increased investment into the county, especially our market towns
• Developing our new organisational leadership model and sharing this widely with the local government community
• planning for next year’s election (we have over 400 elections on the same day – not sure if any organisation has ever undertaken such a task)
• start to build our first three campuses and deliver the business cases for the next wave
• tender and let our new highways contract
• work together to develop our planning service and deliver the peer review recommendations
• continue our systems review of all of our services to ensure maximum performance at minimum cost
• completing the first phase of the county hall refurbishment and re-occupy the MECH building
• continue the roll out of our new waste service and then start to optimise it’s organisation, delivery and performance
• start to plan for and develop proposals to deliver the 13-14 budget with the additional reductions in central government grant announced
A busy but exciting year for us all and, I think another year where Wiltshire leads the agenda in local government. We need to celebrate this more I think.
Welcome back and once again, Happy New Year to all our staff, members communities, and customers.
Carlton
The holidays coupled with the start of a new year always gives me time to reflect on the last year and plan the coming one. This year was no exception, although it did take me rather longer to start thinking about 2012 than it usually does!
We have much to do this year. It would be too long a list to highlight everything but that stand out items for me include the following;
• Working together on our corporate culture, values and behaviours to embed these. Ensuring us as leaders and managers exemplify these too.
• Continue to devolve services, work, decisions and assets to our communities
• Encourage and facilitate economic increased investment into the county, especially our market towns
• Developing our new organisational leadership model and sharing this widely with the local government community
• planning for next year’s election (we have over 400 elections on the same day – not sure if any organisation has ever undertaken such a task)
• start to build our first three campuses and deliver the business cases for the next wave
• tender and let our new highways contract
• work together to develop our planning service and deliver the peer review recommendations
• continue our systems review of all of our services to ensure maximum performance at minimum cost
• completing the first phase of the county hall refurbishment and re-occupy the MECH building
• continue the roll out of our new waste service and then start to optimise it’s organisation, delivery and performance
• start to plan for and develop proposals to deliver the 13-14 budget with the additional reductions in central government grant announced
A busy but exciting year for us all and, I think another year where Wiltshire leads the agenda in local government. We need to celebrate this more I think.
Welcome back and once again, Happy New Year to all our staff, members communities, and customers.
Carlton
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