The year of delivery

It’s already March!

I don’t know about you but I can’t believe how fast this year is going…

The last few weeks we’ve been focused on setting the council’s budget for 2016/17 and the enormity of this task can’t be underestimated. As one of the largest organisations in the county – delivering more than 350 diverse services and spending around £900m each year – we have a lot to consider when deciding how the money is best allocated. It’s a huge responsibility and one that quite rightly needs to be carried out openly so that our local residents are able to give their views on what we decide.

The budget was agreed on 23 February at full council and some of you may have viewed the discussion and debate on the webcast. How we allocate spending is always one of the most debated topics and this year was no different. I believe we put forward a fair and considered budget that allows us to continue to prioritise frontline services and to deliver our priorities.

As I’ve discussed in previous blogs, we need to deliver £25 million of savings this year and we know that we will be expected to make further savings in the future.  Whilst this won’t be easy - it is the reality – and, it will mean we need to continue to look at how we work; what we can do differently and how we can encourage communities to do more.

Unlike other local authorities we have not had to make widespread ‘cuts’ and as I’ve said before, our focus is less on cuts and more on realigning resource to support our top priorities and delivering things differently.

For the first time in six years we had to increase the council tax by 1.99 percent and have also added a social care levy of two per cent. This has helped us to meet the growing demands; particularly in adult social care, children’s services, highways and waste collection.

So, with the budget approved, what’s our focus now?

It’s delivering what we said we would - this year is a year of delivery. The new health and wellbeing centres are moving at a pace, and two more centres; in Salisbury and Tisbury and at least two community hubs will be fully open this year. Working with the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership, we will deliver a number of projects to help boost the economy, and we continue to invest significantly in improving highways, which remains the top priority with local residents and businesses.

We want to encourage local communities to do more and we will encourage their involvement with events, activities and projects; such as ‘Clean for the Queen’ which has seen more than 1500 local volunteers at litter pick events over the past weekend. This campaign is inspiring hundreds of volunteers in communities to clean up litter “hot spots” in readiness for Her Majesty’s 90^th birthday celebrations in June. The first litter pick event in Chippenham saw more than 40 large bin bags being collected - I’m sure Wiltshire will look even better with the help of our communities and we will be ready to celebrate with street parties and other events.

I was also so pleased to hear the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Questions thank Wiltshire Council for the work to support Syrian refugees. When I recently met with some of the families who we have welcomed to the county I was overwhelmed by how well everyone was and the progress they had made. The families were beaming from ear to ear and were so thankful for the support they’ve had and how welcome they’ve been made to feel in our communities. It was truly inspiring and seeing the families settled, happy and safe is tantamount to the hard work of all, including the wonderful volunteers who helped to make this happen.

This week we will be hosting the third business and sports dinner to raise funds to support Wiltshire’s future Olympians and Paralympians and with this being an Olympic year it will be a special event.

I started by saying this year is going by so quickly but, was it really four years ago, that London hosted the Olympic Games and Wiltshire hosted the Olympic torch? It’s been a busy four years and we’ve achieved so much – in my view we deserve a gold medal or two...