Well it seems that I have hardly been away – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun on your holidays. I‘ve had a good break and actually managed to catch some sun as well as spending an unhealthy amount of time in front of the telly watching the Olympics. The withdrawal symptoms are steadily diminishing now...
This week has been quite quiet, so time for me to catch up, think and plan ahead for everything we have to deliver through the autumn as well as starting to think about the new Council that will be elected next May and which will run from 2013-17. We will start to consider all the aspects of this – vision, communities, customer, performance and resources so that we have the information required by members of all political groups as they start to think about the new council, their objectives and what they wish to achieve. Always good to be prepared!
I have also completed SAP appraisals for four of my service directors. The new system works very well and has enabled some good conversations between us as we completed the appraisal process. Please strive to get these completed through September, I think it is vital that every one of our staff has a proper appraisal. If you haven’t had yours yet please ask your manager.
I moved into the new part of County Hall yesterday. Open plan with limited storage! I must admit I’m blown away with the building, how it looks and feels and am very excited about the possibilities this way of working will open up for us all. The break out space will really help to change the culture of the organisation into a modern, fit for purpose public sector operation. Intra-team communication should be greatly enhanced too with no walls and little rooms to hide away in. I’d like to thank the teams from property, ICT, transformation, service engagement and all the others involved in making the transfer so successful. Everything works so well so far.
Finally, we will open the staff survey shortly to everybody. It is important that we all complete this – yes I always do too – so that we can capture where we are and where we wish to get to from our staff’s perspective. Keep an eye out on The Wire for further information.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
Friday, 24 August 2012
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Wednesday 1 August 2012
It’s my last blog for a couple of weeks before I jet off to the back garden for a couple of weeks furlough. I must admit I can’t wait – I’m highly addicted to the Olympics already and will watch the rest of the games on the telly I think. Mrs B might have other ideas of course...
Yesterday we held the staff awards for July and a great occasion it was with the Council Chamber full of staff who have individually or as part of a wider team gone the extra mile for our communities and customers. I always feel very inspired reading the entries and deliberating over them with colleagues as we select the winners. The individual employee of the month winner was Karen Moles and the team winner was the Diamond Jubilee / Olympic Torch Events team made up of hundreds of staff from all departments. Thank you and well done to you all. In September we will be launching the categories for our end of year celebration in February / March 2013. This year I would like to hold this event in our new atrium facility that opens at County Hall in a few weeks time. We’ll see.
Talking about inspiration, I was fortunate to meet Ben Parkinson yesterday. He is a soldier – from 7 Para – who was severely wounded in Afghanistan. In fact he is the most severely injured soldier to survive from his tour of duty in that part of the world. What a guy. A wicked sense of humour and the most engaging smile I’ve seen. He’s about to do another parachute drop next month too which makes me frightened just thinking about it. He was at County Hall to present Jane Scott with a picture that she had bought on Armed Forces Day, by a local Trowbridge artist – the proceeds of which go to the charity of which he is patron (www.pilgrimbandits.org ). This charity works with soldiers whom have been severely wounded and supports their rehab through adventure activities. Very humbling.
To those of you about to go on your holidays, have fun and enjoy yourselves. For those of you working through the next few weeks – thank you.
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. Talk again in a couple of weeks.
Carlton
Yesterday we held the staff awards for July and a great occasion it was with the Council Chamber full of staff who have individually or as part of a wider team gone the extra mile for our communities and customers. I always feel very inspired reading the entries and deliberating over them with colleagues as we select the winners. The individual employee of the month winner was Karen Moles and the team winner was the Diamond Jubilee / Olympic Torch Events team made up of hundreds of staff from all departments. Thank you and well done to you all. In September we will be launching the categories for our end of year celebration in February / March 2013. This year I would like to hold this event in our new atrium facility that opens at County Hall in a few weeks time. We’ll see.
Talking about inspiration, I was fortunate to meet Ben Parkinson yesterday. He is a soldier – from 7 Para – who was severely wounded in Afghanistan. In fact he is the most severely injured soldier to survive from his tour of duty in that part of the world. What a guy. A wicked sense of humour and the most engaging smile I’ve seen. He’s about to do another parachute drop next month too which makes me frightened just thinking about it. He was at County Hall to present Jane Scott with a picture that she had bought on Armed Forces Day, by a local Trowbridge artist – the proceeds of which go to the charity of which he is patron (www.pilgrimbandits.org ). This charity works with soldiers whom have been severely wounded and supports their rehab through adventure activities. Very humbling.
To those of you about to go on your holidays, have fun and enjoy yourselves. For those of you working through the next few weeks – thank you.
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. Talk again in a couple of weeks.
Carlton
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Tuesday 24 July 2012
The holidays are nearly here for most of us and thank goodness the sun is out. I got very sun burned on Sunday at Castle Combe watching some terrific saloon car racing so be warned – take your sun cream with you!
Today I shall be in Monkton Park all day for a series of meetings with members. Cabinet is up first where they will take a major decision regarding which supplier provides our highways consultancy service for the next five years. This is the team that do the engineering design and programme development of all our highway related activity and is a contract worth around £4m per year.
Other decisions relate to the major incident plan – our emergency plan should anything big happen anywhere in the county requiring a major response from the public sector and the annual governance statement, our statement of the major issues and risks affecting the organisation over the last and next year.
This afternoon we have a meeting of the Cabinet Capital Assets Committee – the group that decide and approve where our capital funding will be spent to secure the objectives of the council. We have an important paper summarising the achievements so far versus our plan for the Transformation Programme. It’s well worth a read and I’m very proud of what we have all achieved over the past four years.
Speaking about transformation I recognise that many of us are moving office over the next few months and will be starting to work flexibly more often. We are doing this to save significant revenue costs – the money that we free up is being used to invest in services for children, adults and other priorities across the county. This can be a worrying time for all of us and I am reminded of the following quote:
“Change is not an event to be managed but a psychological transition to be led”.
I have no idea who originally said this but it’s important to me nevertheless. The role of managers at a time like this is to lead people on the journey, aware of the transition to be made. Helping, encouraging, understanding, questioning and above all supporting staff. This is also the way we achieve the cultural change that we want.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
Today I shall be in Monkton Park all day for a series of meetings with members. Cabinet is up first where they will take a major decision regarding which supplier provides our highways consultancy service for the next five years. This is the team that do the engineering design and programme development of all our highway related activity and is a contract worth around £4m per year.
Other decisions relate to the major incident plan – our emergency plan should anything big happen anywhere in the county requiring a major response from the public sector and the annual governance statement, our statement of the major issues and risks affecting the organisation over the last and next year.
This afternoon we have a meeting of the Cabinet Capital Assets Committee – the group that decide and approve where our capital funding will be spent to secure the objectives of the council. We have an important paper summarising the achievements so far versus our plan for the Transformation Programme. It’s well worth a read and I’m very proud of what we have all achieved over the past four years.
Speaking about transformation I recognise that many of us are moving office over the next few months and will be starting to work flexibly more often. We are doing this to save significant revenue costs – the money that we free up is being used to invest in services for children, adults and other priorities across the county. This can be a worrying time for all of us and I am reminded of the following quote:
“Change is not an event to be managed but a psychological transition to be led”.
I have no idea who originally said this but it’s important to me nevertheless. The role of managers at a time like this is to lead people on the journey, aware of the transition to be made. Helping, encouraging, understanding, questioning and above all supporting staff. This is also the way we achieve the cultural change that we want.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Thursday 12 July 2012
This week has been full on for two days of Olympic celebration in and around Salisbury. The torch came back into the county on Wednesday, visiting Ludgershall, Tidworth and Amesbury amongst others and entering Hudson’s field, Salisbury last night where the Olympic cauldron was lit in front of 30,000 people. It was a long day for the 500 plus staff involved in making this event such a huge success, starting at 7am in the morning with a business breakfast for over 200 representatives from businesses across the county. We had some great live music all day and many other performances from communities across the county. The firework finale was breath taking.
This morning, Thursday, I was up at 3am with Jane Scott to attend an event at Stonehenge where Michael Johnson, Olympic 400m Gold Medallist and world record holder showed the Olympic torch and flame to around 80 journalists from the worlds press and TV. These iconic pictures went round the world at 5.07 when the sun came up and lit the stones, Michael and the torch. I took the photos below to share with you. It felt like a real moment in history!
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We then attended the Cathedral for the official start of the torch journey today, moving on to Wilton, Barford St Martin, Fovant and then Ludwell where it left Wiltshire for the very last time. It was sad to see it go.
I would like to thank all our wonderful staff who put so much effort into making these events such a success. I had so much feedback from excited residents, visitors and businesses over the last few days, and all of them pointed out how great our team are. They’re so right! I know that many staff had to continue to deliver our important services during these events, and couldn’t be directly involved. I thank you all too for ensuring that we could deliver together as a single team.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
This morning, Thursday, I was up at 3am with Jane Scott to attend an event at Stonehenge where Michael Johnson, Olympic 400m Gold Medallist and world record holder showed the Olympic torch and flame to around 80 journalists from the worlds press and TV. These iconic pictures went round the world at 5.07 when the sun came up and lit the stones, Michael and the torch. I took the photos below to share with you. It felt like a real moment in history!
We then attended the Cathedral for the official start of the torch journey today, moving on to Wilton, Barford St Martin, Fovant and then Ludwell where it left Wiltshire for the very last time. It was sad to see it go.
I would like to thank all our wonderful staff who put so much effort into making these events such a success. I had so much feedback from excited residents, visitors and businesses over the last few days, and all of them pointed out how great our team are. They’re so right! I know that many staff had to continue to deliver our important services during these events, and couldn’t be directly involved. I thank you all too for ensuring that we could deliver together as a single team.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
Friday, 29 June 2012
Friday 29 June 2012
A very short blog this week – my apologies.
Can I ask you all to please volunteer to help us out with the Olympic torch events on July 11 and 12 at Hudson’s field in Salisbury and the surrounding towns and villages. We need more marshals and others to help ensure these events run smoothly for our communities and are a real celebration in the county. They also offer us a great opportunity to further develop our culture and team working together and have some real fun! Thanks in advance.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
Can I ask you all to please volunteer to help us out with the Olympic torch events on July 11 and 12 at Hudson’s field in Salisbury and the surrounding towns and villages. We need more marshals and others to help ensure these events run smoothly for our communities and are a real celebration in the county. They also offer us a great opportunity to further develop our culture and team working together and have some real fun! Thanks in advance.
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. Talk again in a week or so.
Carlton
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