I have so much to write about this week…
On Tuesday morning I attended the grand opening and blessing of the new Diocesan Education Centre at Wilton. This centre provides an important service for the church schools in Wiltshire and I was very pleased to be invited to the opening.
In the afternoon, I met with the local media to brief them on what we will be discussing at cabinet next week. I hold these meetings ahead of every cabinet and they are extremely useful providing an opportunity for the media to gain a better understanding of the reports on the agenda and to ask me or other cabinet members any questions. This briefing focused a lot on the campus programme as next week we will be considering the business case for progressing campuses in Calne, Cricklade, Pewsey and Tisbury and some of you may have heard the positive coverage of the Tisbury campus proposals on BBC Wiltshire radio yesterday.
The media were also interested in the new public health arrangements for Wiltshire which go live from April 2013. Firstly, we have a new legal duty to set up a local Healthwatch from April. This will be a group that’s independent of the council and will represent all our residents in the improvement of health and social care services. They will also help point people in the right direction who wish to make a complaint about NHS services.
Secondly, the Wiltshire Annual Public Health report will now come to cabinet and I’m looking forward to discussing and hearing about the work of the public health team and its partners over the past year to improve health in Wiltshire.
On Wednesday I was very proud to officially open our new customer service centre at Snuff Street, right in the heart of Devizes. Most of you will be aware that one of our key goals is to make better use of our buildings and rationalise these wherever possible. I have always wanted to create welcoming, multi-purpose and practical space that can be used by the community, our staff and partners and I’m so pleased that we managed to secure these premises as they are easy to access and close to the town centre and shops. I hope that the location of the centre will help to boost the economy bringing more customers and staff into the town.
All our services can be accessed either face to face or by appointment including the registration service and the first wedding took place on Monday. Snuff Street is currently the only location where all council services can be accessed in one place right in the heart of the community.
Talking of communities, this week I started work on the outline programme for the next Wiltshire Assembly, which takes place on 12 December. The focus will be inspiring a generation with the focus on young people. We need to start by looking at the Joint Strategic Assessment (JSA) evidence and the facts about young people in the county. The JSA for Wiltshire is available on the Wiltshire Intelligence Network website. This evidence, combined with the impact of young people’s participation and involvement in this year’s events, will provide the starting point for the assembly to discuss how young people can be inspired and reach their potential whether that’s in sport, activities, work and their community. I’m really passionate that we do as much as possible to maximise the opportunities and momentum that this year created for young people and how with young people, businesses, our partners and the communities we can do this.
I am continuing to attend the area boards to present the impact of this year’s events and at the South West area board in Tisbury on Wednesday evening there was a really positive response and a commitment from those attending to creating an ongoing legacy and there is already a lot being planned for next year including an inter schools sports tournament, which will be based on the excellent event this year run by Matt Mullins, the Tisbury leisure centre duty supervisor. His work led to one of only seven Olympic Inspire Accreditations awarded to Wiltshire and set a benchmark for future legacy events.
Yesterday it was really good to see so many of you at the staff forums in Salisbury. I really enjoy the forums as they are an opportunity to hear how you view things and to update on what’s happening in the council. As always there were some challenging and interesting questions and it’s clear that we are continuing to deliver a huge amount of work.
And finally, in a week which started with the exciting scientific news about Felix Baumgartner setting the world record for skydiving, we have just heard that the government has announced that Wiltshire has been awarded a grant of £10 million to deliver a new state of the art science park at Porton near Salisbury. This is fantastic news for the county as it will create 2,000 jobs, over the next 10 years, and will put Wiltshire right at the forefront of the science and technology industries and be a huge boost to the local economy.
Have a good weekend everyone,
Jane
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