Budget consultations begin

"Well hasn’t January flown by! February starts at the weekend and the days are getting noticeably longer. Roll on spring…

Yesterday we published the detail of the 2015-16 budget online. This is available to everybody in the county as this week we start the formal consultation on the proposals made. As I have said before, we have to save £30m next year and the budget proposes some radical recommendations to do that. I would encourage all staff to spend a few minutes reading those proposals and to give us your feedback. It’s important that we hear the views of staff.

Last night we held the first budget consultation meeting in Chippenham. There were about 60 members of the public in attendance (it was good to see some young people there too) and I was reassured from the extensive question and answer session that most people recognise how tough it is right now in the public sector; balancing the opposing requirements of increased demand and need (particularly in services covering adults, children, waste and highways) with significant central government grant reductions of 13% plus next year. Also of interest was the view that Wiltshire Council was very open and transparent about these pressures. Nobody in the audience came up with any radically different views about how to meet this challenge and all the proposals seem to be supported by most. We move on to Trowbridge tonight, Devizes and Salisbury next week so do please come along.

Over the last week or so I have met several hundred staff from many different services. I like this part of my job the most. I attended the Planning & Economic Development knowledge series last week which brings together over 100 staff from across those services to explore how they can support other services in delivering their objectives. The staff induction event was well attended by over 70 staff too, where the leader and I discussed the organisation, how we work together and the objectives in the business plan. Yesterday I spoke at the Highways and Transport managers and team leaders session where they spent a day developing their strategic & delivery plans for the next year. It was inspiring to hear the views, opinions and questions from across the organisation.

I continue to train on my bike every day for my first road time trial on May 13. It seems a long way off but it will be here before I know it…

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”

The future is ours to seize in 2015

 Happy new year to you all. I hope you had  a good break over the Christmas period and managed to avoid the colds, flu and chest infections that most people seem to have got. Me included.

2015 is going to be an interesting year. The general election campaign kicked off immediately on January 2 with the major parties making the NHS A&E capacity issues, bed blocking and economic recovery the early issues to discuss. And today we have the televised leaders’ debate issue all over the press from a perspective of will it or won’t it happen? Only another four months to go. Our role however is to run a fair and accurate election and our team here in the council is working on that. Plans are progressing well.

The more interesting aspect of the election for me is what will happen on May 8 – the day after. It’s clear that there are further cuts in public sector funding to come which could amount to a further 40% for us. This will be challenging and tricky to deliver and will require us to continue to think differently about the purpose or local government and how it goes about delivering the key aspects of its vision and objectives. We will need to become more of a facilitator and enabler for others to deliver what our communities need and we will need to redesign our direct service provision to be high performing within the financial constraints that we have. We have a strong track record here.

This will not be easy but we must remain positive and up for the challenge. We have great staff, management and elected members all with good ideas about how we can achieve this. Fortune favours the brave, and we must remember that. Bold, innovative policy developed from an in depth knowledge of our communities and customers and delivered with attention to detail. The future is ours to seize in 2015.   

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

Seasons greetings and thanks to all for your hard work this year

"Well it’s nearly Christmas and time flies when you’re trying to develop a balanced budget! I do want to take the opportunity to thank you all for your continued commitment and hard work this year. I find Wiltshire Council is an inspiring place to work and that’s down to all of you.

It was great to see so many of you at the staff forums which we completed last week. We held eight of these around the county and I have to admit I was surprised at the upbeat nature of the discussion, questions and ideas for improvement in the future. I found this encouraging, refreshing and heartening.

Do have a great Christmas, with a well-earned rest and have a happy new year. For those of us working over the holiday period, thank you.

We received our funding settlement from the government yesterday and as in previous years our finance team were spot on with their modelling and predictions. A cash cut in our 2015-16 grant of 13%, and this coupled with significant demand growth in adults, children and waste requiring overall savings of £30m or 10% to set a balanced budget. High numbers indeed but we have to remember that still leaves us with significant resources for us to continue to work with our communities and elected members to achieve our collective vision and objectives.

Speak again in 2015! 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"

Future funding, budgets and staff forums

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog, my apologies for this. It’s been a whirlwind of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) meetings where we are putting together bids for the county of up to £25m to deliver more high value jobs and houses across the county. We’re also working on the detailed project plans to deliver the schemes approved in the first round of our growing places funding that was announced in the summer. These schemes include Chippenham station and a number of road schemes across the county. Busy times for the economic development team.

I was in London late last week with other unitary directors and chief execs sharing our learning around our LEP, the budget where we need to identify £30m of savings for ’15-16, our business plan objectives and the wider transformation programme. It was reassuring for me to hear that we are up there with the best in terms of what we are delivering in the county, although the budget task is very difficult.

The autumn staff forum events start next week and I encourage you all to attend these. They are an important event for us all to share with each other what we are facing, how we will collectively tackle those challenges and most importantly to answer the questions that you will have for us all.

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

A couple of opportunities ....

A flying blog today just to make you aware of a couple of opportunities for us all. Wiltshire Council’s Learning in Wiltshire brand continues to go from strength to strength with a new and exciting website which really raises the profile of our service to businesses and communities across Wiltshire. Individuals and businesses can now access a fantastic programme of training and development to help further career and job prospects.

Please like, follow and share our Facebook page with your friends, family, work colleagues and businesses www.learninginwiltshire.org.uk

Wiltshire Rewards has been running for a year. Staff have spent over £880,000 and saved just over £100,000. Staff can join the scheme at any time by visiting www.wiltshirerewards.co.uk. Savings can be made on everything from your weekly food shop, to DIY, to holidays and days out.

Finally, the staff survey closes tomorrow. It is very important that we all complete this so that we can learn what we need to improve in the organisation moving forward. There is more information about how we acted on the 2012 survey responses on the staff survey information page on HR Direct.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter

Carlton