Friday 25 January

Hello

I hope you all managed to cope with the icy and snowy conditions this week and, if like me, you need to travel around the county - it’s certainly been a challenge. I would, however, like to thank the teams who have worked tirelessly battling through this bad weather to clear the main roads and to deliver our critical front line services; particularly to those who are vulnerable. The feedback from Wiltshire residents has been amazing; I have received lots of thank you letters and compliments about our teams and they reflect the hard work and commitment that you demonstrate in your work and are totally deserved.

The winter response team has been working around the clock and using social media as a main channel to get messages out to local communities. The number of Twitter followers has now exceeded 3,000 for Wiltshire Council and almost 1,600 for Wiltshire Winter. People expect instant real time communication especially when incidents such as bad weather affect them. Social media is instant and effective. If you don’t tweet already – maybe you should, and that includes me!

Monday was an exciting day as we had the first of the budget roadshows around the county, kicking off outside County Hall. I hope the road shows will provide a real insight into what members of the public consider we have done well in our first four years as a unitary council, and what they say we can improve on. This will help with setting next year’s budget and plans for the future. The budget proposals will be presented at council meeting on 26 February. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions we had to postpone the road shows in Salisbury and Marlborough. The rescheduled dates and a full list of all the road shows are on the website.

We also launched the stay safe, be seen campaign this week. Several primary schools have been visited and this campaign has attracted positive media interest. Working with NHS Wiltshire, the police and the fire and rescue services, we’re giving away high visibility flashing and reflective armbands to all years 5 and 6 primary school children in Wiltshire. The bands are also available from fire stations across the county for dog walkers, cyclists, runners and anyone else needing to be seen in the dark. You can find out opening times of fire stations on the website.

We had an interesting cabinet meeting on Tuesday. One of the agenda items was an update on how our adoption service is improving. Following last year’s Ofsted inspection we have made a number of improvements including introducing a home-finder post, which has helped to reduce the time it takes to place a child with a loving family. We always focus on getting the right family for a child and avoid quick-fix solutions which can end in the breakdown of a placement. Here in Wiltshire these breakdowns, which are extremely damaging for the children and the adopters, happen relatively rarely due to the approach we take and our determination to place a child in a suitable home. We will continue to deliver improvements and safeguarding children and meeting their needs is a top priority.

The waste sites local plan, which outlines suitable sites for clean and modern waste treatment facilities, was approved and will go to full council for final adoption in February. We also agreed to provide our housing tenants with the opportunity to be involved and make decisions on the council’s housing service. The Localism Act has made a number of changes to the way council housing is financed and funding is available to improve the housing stock. We approved setting up a board which will include housing tenants, to manage our council housing and make decisions on what needs to be done and what’s a priority for improvement.

Following cabinet I chaired the capital assets committee which discussed and agreed some key decisions that will improve local communities. These included transferring Trowbridge Town Hall to a community group who intend to turn the building into an arts and dance centre; making a bid to central government to address the bottleneck on the A350 in Chippenham (outside Chippenham Golf Club) by extending the dual carriageway; and agreeing extension plans for Tidworth school.

On Wednesday, I was in London presenting to the LGC awards panel. I mentioned before that we have been shortlisted for four national awards. A panel of judges for each category will meet all those shortlisted to decide the winner. Julie Anderson Hill and I presented on our transformation programme and they seemed suitably impressed and asked if they could visit County Hall – so fingers crossed – we will find out in March if we have won. Three other teams will be presenting on our campus programme, help to live at home project and our energy efficiency eco programme. I wish them all luck and hope they do well and thank you to everyone involved in presenting and persuading the judges that we should win for our outstanding work!

Today is an early start as I am attending the Wessex Chamber of Commerce business breakfast near Bradford on Avon. The speaker is Angus Macpherson – the new Police Crime Commissioner who will talk about his police and crime plan that he has to publish by April this year. It includes sharing resources and facilities with other public sector organisations and I have no doubt he will use Monkton Park as a good example of how this can be achieved. I also want to say how much we are looking forward to welcoming everyone to County Hall next month as we have agreed to host the February business breakfast in the atrium.

After breakfast I am off to Salisbury for a regular update meeting with the hospital. These meetings are always useful to review how we work with the health service particularly with the changes that are happening.

I end this week spending the evening with the 3rd Yorkshire Regiment in Warminster. The regiment has recently returned from Afghanistan and will be giving a presentation on that tour. I will be attending with Christine Crisp, the council’s chairman. These occasions are always poignant and emotional as we recognise the commitment and endurance of our forces.

More next week and let’s hope that the big thaw that’s forecast for the weekend does not result in flooding in our communities, but I know if that happens our teams will be on hand to assist and support those affected.

Jane.

Friday 18 January

Hello

In last week’s blog I talked about the emergency planning day that I had been asked to open. It really hit home this week just how important it is to be prepared and trained in these matters when a disaster happens. Wednesday’s tragic helicopter crash in London could have happened in Wiltshire and we need to be prepared to respond to any incident or emergency.

On the matter of being prepared....I know the incident team has been planning and preparing for the snow forecast for today and BBC radio is reporting live from our incident room in County Hall. Dan the reporter has been there, with our duty team since 6 am this morning, providing updates to commuters, drivers and parents across the county about the road conditions and school closures; more than 200 across the county!  I know that teams will work hard to keep business as usual where possible to help those in need of our services, but please be sensible about travelling and listen to the updates on local radio.

I’m thrilled that the Municipal Journal (national local government journal) has published this week that Wiltshire is the fifth best place in the country for businesses to invest in. National publicity such as this could really help to attract new business into the county and is positive for those already based here. Our economic team is working hard to promote and secure inward investment and this article is a real boost.

And, what fantastic and fascinating news relating to Avebury - as a visitor experience it has been ranked second out of all the world heritage sites. It ranks higher than Peru’s Machu Pichu, the Egyptian pyramids and the Taj Mahal. It was only beaten by Monte Alban in Mexico. Once again Wiltshire is on the global map.

On Tuesday this week, Carolyn and I opened the early intervention conference. Over 200 partners and providers attended to discuss how we help children and families as early as possible when the need for support has been highlighted. We know prevention and timely support can make a huge difference for the lives of children and young people. It was really positive to see so many partners and agencies discussing how by working together we can provide support as early as possible and make a real difference.

On Tuesday evening I was invited to attend a dinner in London with representatives from several London borough councils, other large local authorities and ministers to discuss how we are meeting the financial challenges that we face. My input focused on the key facts and data that we have achieved in the first (almost) four years as a unitary and our achievements are impressive. We have saved over £100m and dramatically reduced our management and support functions whilst continuing to invest in the key front line services. Our short history is impressive and of great interest to others.

Yesterday was a day of back to back meetings, starting with a catch up with Bill Browne, editor of the Salisbury Journal to discuss how we continue to work with the Journal to provide news and updates on what’s happening in Salisbury; this year we have a lot happening in the city!  It was Bill’s first visit to the refurbished County Hall and he was extremely impressed.

I also chaired the Legacy Steering Board yesterday and there is a huge programme of work underway to keep the momentum of last year going. The focus is on keeping communities active and involved, boosting the local economy, keeping fit, healthy and active and promoting Wiltshire as a destination for future events and activities. The board is producing a calendar of events for this year and beyond; some of which will be hosted in the atrium at County Hall. We will be meeting with the local communities later this month to discuss how we can support them with events and activities this year.

We also talked about plans to mark Salisbury City Hall’s 50^th anniversary later this year. The City Hall is a war memorial and plans to commemorate and celebrate its history and significance to the city are underway.  I’ll keep you updated as these plans develop.

I was also pleased to welcome Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and his team yesterday. We are working with the RSA to explore how local communities can be involved in running the campuses. This will be new and radical project and will influence national and international policy in this area. The RSA works with organisations that are visionary in their approach and demonstrate a commitment to push the boundaries of current thinking; that is definitely us!

I’m mainly spending today catching up on a very busy week and planning for important events next week.

Starting on Monday we will be running consultation road shows in nine locations across the county to ask people their views on the first four years of the council – what’s good – what could be better, and, where would they spend more money and less money. The feedback will be collated to help influence our future plans and the 2013/14 budget setting. We’ve already made a commitment to our residents not to increase council tax in 2013/14 and to protect, wherever possible, our front line services, but it will be interesting to hear what people think about our services and where they consider we should spend more money and save more money. The budget proposals will be debated at council meeting on 26 February. You can find a full list of roadshows on the website.

On Tuesday, cabinet meets in Chippenham and will discuss a number of items including the Waste Sites local plan. The plan identifies suitable sites for managing waste. Following extensive consultation the number of sites has been reduced from 100 to 34. The development of state-of-the-art, modern facilities to process waste will help us reduce waste going to landfill and the cost of landfill tax that we pay. The updated Joint Strategic Assessment (JSA) is also on the agenda and provides accurate data and evidence on our county and residents including the economy, health and population statistics and growth. The JSA is the foundation for service planning and delivery and focuses where our resources need to be allocated.

Next week we are also launching the stay safe, be seen campaign. Working with NHS Wiltshire, the police and the fire and rescue service we will help primary school children be safe as they walk to school. We’ll be giving out special high visibility flashing and reflective armbands.  This is part of a bigger campaign to help make Wiltshire’s road safer.

Stay safe, stay warm and stay put over the weekend...

Jane

Friday 11 January 2013

A very Happy New Year to you all and welcome to 2013. I hope you had a really enjoyable Christmas break and a huge thank you to all of you who worked through the holiday period and kept our key front line services running.

I took the opportunity to have a break over the festive period and went away and am now ready for a challenging and exciting 2013 - after the outstanding success of 2012, I know we can tackle almost anything!

I’ve come back to a busy and varied week which started with the interviews for Wiltshire’s Chief Constable. I was part of the panel, which was chaired by Angus Macpherson, the police and crime commissioner. Patrick Geenty, who has been acting up as the chief constable, has been appointed (subject to ratification by the Police and Crime Panel today). I’m pleased that Patrick has been appointed and I’m looking forward to continuing the great collaborative working that we have with the police.

On Tuesday the focus was an Action for Wiltshire board meeting and a Safeguarging Children's Improvement Board. I have talked about the Action for Wiltshire activities before and the impact that this valuable programme of work has had, and continues to have, on businesses and communities affected by the economic climate. This week’s meeting focused on what more we can do to boost the local economy and a business to business EXPO event is in the early stages of planning to take place in the summer in Trowbridge. We also looked at what else we can do to support those who will be most affected by the Welfare Reform Act. This includes how we work with the CAB and ensure that it has the capacity and support to manage the increased demand.

The Safeguarding Children's Improvement Board continues to discuss and review the improvements being made in children’s services following last year’s Ofsted. Our progress will be assessed by an external peer review team later this month and will provide us with valuable feedback on the actions we’ve taken so far, and what more we need to do to improve this vital  front line service.

Following the board meeting, on Wednesday morning I met with staff working in children’s services to discuss the improvements and to acknowledge the hard work undertaken on this journey.

I also attended a meeting of the Swindon & Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership to discuss future projects to bring economic growth into the county.

Yesterday morning was the first of 2013’s corporate induction sessions for new members of staff. These sessions are always enjoyable and yesterday there was more than thirty new staff that were really lively and asked myself and Carlton lots of great questions about the council and where we are heading.

Later in the day, Carlton and I visited Longleat to hear their plans for growth and developing their business. Longleat has a huge impact on our local economy and I was delighted to hear their positive feedback regarding the support our teams provide in assisting them with their growth.

Today there a major incident and recovery planning training day at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge and I was invited to say a few words at the start of the day. It is vital to ensure that we can respond to any major incident and take whatever action that is needed to protect and support our local communities.

And, finally on a personal note, my football team are starting 2013 at the top of the premiership league table. Obviously, I’m hoping and am confident that they will stay there.... but I’m sure there are some of you who think otherwise!

More next week,

Jane.