Promise of spring

We are well into March and when the sun shines there is a real sense of spring in the air. The clocks will be going forward in a couple of weeks’ time and the evenings will be brighter and the days longer. I like this time of year – it’s a time of new beginnings and fresh hope – and it’s a time when I would normally be lambing and helping my ewes. This year it’s a new start for me too as my farming days are now behind me. After more than fifty years it’s quite a difference and I realise it will take some getting used to, but as I drive across Wiltshire and see the lambs bouncing in the fields I will enjoy my memories and the reality that spring has arrived. 

Now that the budget has been approved and we have a robust plan for making the savings we need and delivering the investment into services that we know matter to residents, we can focus on what’s happening in the coming weeks.

You may remember last year’s Cycle Wiltshire, which was a great success.  Some of you took part cycling around the beautiful countryside in the Salisbury area.  Well I’m pleased to say we are hosting another Cycle Wiltshire weekend this year.  The Sportive event is on Saturday 9 May starting from Five Rivers Community Campus. All cycling abilities can take part choosing from three distances; 20 miles for the beginners and 64 miles or 100 miles for enthusiasts and those looking for an extra challenge.  There is also a planned one mile route for youngsters and their families ….mmm one for me to consider!

On Sunday (10 May) the Cycle Wiltshire Grand Prix elite cycle race will take place starting from Five Rivers cycling through Salisbury city Centre and out to Wilton. 100 elite riders from top professional teams will take part and I hope lots of local people will again line the route to see and support the best riders in Britain.

When it comes to supporting the next generation of sports stars, I think we do pretty well here in Wiltshire. Later this month we will co-host with the Wessex Chambers of Commerce the second Business and Sports Gala Dinner in the atrium. This event, which we launched last year, raised £30,000 to support our elite athletes and help them on their journey to Rio or future Olympic and Paralympic Games. This year’s dinner has sold out, which is great news, and highlights local business enthusiasm to support our up and coming athletes. As a result of their commitment, the foundation fund set up last year will be topped so that our aspiring and elite sports people can receive the funds they need for travel, coaching and equipment.

I am proud to support our future sporting stars and hope that we can follow their journey to Rio next year as their success puts Wiltshire on the international map. It’s always good to see the top businesses in the county working with us to achieve a shared goal. I’m looking forward to the evening and would be delighted if we can top last year’s success and raise more than £30,000.

I’ve focused a lot on sport but there’s so much more happening this year. The anniversary of the Magna Carta takes place in June and every community in Wiltshire is invited to participate and showcase how they see justice and democracy today. 

A pageant, which promises to be a real spectacle, will take place on 15 June. I look forward to seeing our communities across the county come together to celebrate what makes them unique.

In the midst of the challenges we face we need to stay focused on our priorities; bringing local communities together is one of these and this year’s events and activities provide an opportunity for involvement, participation and the promise of something new – just like spring!

Rising to challenges together

A recent trip to London, reminded me of the importance of democracy and how tough choices need to be made if we are to live in a healthy society. My trip to the capital was to see the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta, which are placed together in the British Library – our “own” copy, the one which normally resides at Salisbury Cathedral, was by far the most splendidly intact.

To see these four relics, in this the 800^th year since Magna Carta was written, really brought home its significance and made me feel rather proud of our national record when it comes to living in a democratic society. Magna Carta marked a watershed for ordinary British subjects and ultimately it sparked our parliamentary democracy and rule of law, but maybe most importantly, it also stands out as the first time the people of this nation had their voices heard.

Our voice has been heard ever since, and that’s just as important today as it was 800 years ago.

As you will know I am proud to promote openness and transparency and local views are both helpful and influential in helping the council to make the tough choices. Over the last few weeks we held a series of public meetings to discuss the challenges we face and to set out our budget proposals, ahead of them being discussed and approved by full council on 24 February. More than 250 people attended these meetings to hear how we plan to save £30 million over the next year, and it was an opportunity to hear people’s views and to answer their questions.

Let me be clear – we weren’t just there to be seen to be listening. We were genuinely listening, and I was impressed with what we heard. Yes, of course there was criticism of the council – we all know you can’t please all of the people all of the time – but there was also truly constructive community energy; a sense that we’re all in this together and people were aware of the financial challenges that we have to address. The majority of people seem to understand the difficult financial situation we’re in. As I explained in my last blog, Wiltshire Council currently spends around £900 million each year on more than 350 services. Changing demographics, such as people living longer coupled with inflation and further severe cuts in funding from central government means we have to find more savings.

The Budget presentation and details of the Budget Q&A are available online for those who couldn’t make it to one of the events, but may be interested in finding out more.

We have identified more than 100 areas where savings can be made and we want to do what’s best for the people of Wiltshire, and we recognise that to suggest an increase on council tax – whilst acceptable to some – would put huge pressure on many households.

One of the criticisms raised at the meetings is our proposal to charge for garden waste.  We have resisted bringing in a charge until now, despite many other authorities having gone down this route. It is unfortunate that we need to propose charging for this service; particularly after we asked people about changes to garden waste collections last year, and charging was not their preferred option. The reality is that we now know the budget situation is more challenging than when we carried out the consultation.  I have publically apologised to everyone who took the time to respond to the consultation and I’m genuinely sorry that the preferred option – to only collect in the summer months - is no longer viable.

But it’s not all been doom and gloom  - a Growth Deal package of Government money of £11.5m has been unveiled for Wiltshire - which will fund improvements to the busy Yarnbrook junction near Trowbridge and encourage innovative start-up businesses as part of the Digital Corsham project. This funding is in addition to the £129.3 million committed by the Government on 7 July 2014.
 

Over the lifetime of this new deal (2016-2021) the Local Enterprise Partnership estimates that up to 2,500 new jobs could be created and 2,100 new homes built.  The new commitments in this deal also have the potential to generate up to £80 million public and private investment.

So looking on the bright side – those “green shoots” that television reporters like to talk about - are pushing through in our county.

This takes me back to the thoughts that I had when I stood before those extraordinary 800-year-old documents in the British Library. Confronting a medieval king and demanding greater rights can’t have been easy for the barons in 1215. But having a voice and speaking out, particularly at times when tough choices need to be made can result in our proudest moments.

 You can find out more about Magna Carta 800-themed events here in Wiltshire at www.visitwiltshire.co.uk or explore the subject further by downloading a copy of the Magna Carta 800 trails leaflet

Facing tough decisions

It was Abraham Lincoln who famously said: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” These words ring true for me today.

In my last blog I talked about the challenges and the opportunities that we face over the coming year, but now, as we prepare to set our budget next month, this is a real area of focus.

As you know, we currently spend around £900 million each year on more than 350 services. 

Changing demographics, such as people living longer (fortunately!) coupled with inflation and the cuts in funding from central government means we have to find more savings.

 I consider it my responsibility to spell out the facts of what this means. Last year we received £119m from the Government – this year we will get £103.8m. This cut of more than £15m, combined with the rise in demand for some of our key front line services and inflation costs, means we need to find a further £30m of savings this coming financial year.

That’s a tall order – but we’re getting used to those! Last year we saved £25.5m by reviewing all our services and looking at what we could deliver more efficiently and by sharing resources.

Let’s be clear - we remain absolutely committed to our three main priorities – to protect those who are most vulnerable in our communities, to boost the local economy; creating new jobs and safeguarding existing jobs, and to support and empower communities to do more for themselves – making them stronger, more resilient and able to cope with the pressures and problems that they face.

And we’ll continue to invest in the areas that we know matter to our residents, and into projects that will save money in the future.

£84m will be spent on resurfacing roads for the next two years, along with £33m on road maintenance including potholes.

£65m is being invested in providing infrastructure and jobs to keep the economy in Wiltshire buoyant. This includes building a new Science Park in Porton, dualling the A350 at Chippenham and a major refurbishment of the town’s railway station.

We all know that we need more affordable homes and we will be investing £45m to provide new homes, extra care and sheltered housing and £46m will be spent on improving council housing.

We have also allocated £66m to provide community campuses and hubs across the county. These new campuses will rationalise a range of buildings (often scattered across a community area in various states of disrepair) into a location that is more accessible, can be ran more efficiently and will save money, as well as providing local communities with the range of services, facilities and activities that they need and want.

Both national and local media have well publicised the ‘cut-backs’ and the pressures facing public services and the health service has hardly been out of the news for the past two weeks. The cuts are real – and so is the growing demand for the services that we provide.

We know we have more older people living for longer in Wiltshire (currently 15% higher number than the rest of the country) and this places huge demand on our social care and health services. And, we also know that more children need safeguarding and more are in need of our support and care.

These key services don’t have a cut-off or ceiling on spend or numbers.

We also have a growing number of households (2,000 each year) – which means there’s more demand for services, such as waste and recycling collections.

Wiltshire Council was formed almost 6 years ago and in this time we have seen major change. I know these changes have impacted on all of you. We need your ideas and thoughts on how we can continue to do things differently and be more innovative in our approach. I would like to thank you all for your support and overwhelming commitment to do what’s best for the people of Wiltshire. This has helped us to deliver excellent services to residents in difficult and challenges times.

The savings we need to find; both this coming year and beyond means that tough choices have to be made. We need to ask questions about whether there are ways we could do things better – or whether we should be doing them at all.

Starting today (Monday 26 January), we will be holding a series of public meetings so we can talk to residents directly about the challenges we face, and we’ll be asking for their views.

So far, as part of looking at next year’s budget, we have identified more than 100 areas where we are proposing to find savings. These include:

•      Charging for garden waste collections

•      Finding office efficiencies in support services

•      Encouraging efficiencies in voluntary sector services

•      Changing street lighting times

•      Reviewing the Household Recycling Centres opening times

I’ve no doubt that some of these proposals will be covered in the local media over the next few weeks, before council decides its budget for next year. But it’s not about ‘cut-backs’. As I said in my last column, the key to making sustained savings will be through innovation. We have got to continue to be smart. We need to continue to find ways and new opportunities to do more for less. I know it’s a big ask.

Perhaps there is some reassurance in Abraham Lincoln’s words that: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

Jane

An exciting year of challenges

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

There comes a time – maybe it has already passed - when is it too late to say and wish people a happy new year? But as this is my first blog for 2015, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to say it, as I firmly believe that this year is going to be an exciting and interesting one.

Sometimes it’s easy to feel a little deflated in January – the festive decorations are being taken down, all the twinkly lights that so brightened up the long winter days have been switched off, and Christmas trees, stripped of their baubles, are being taken away by our recycling teams.

But, on the positive side, it’s also a time to start afresh and focus on the year ahead and what it will bring. There is no doubt that there will be plenty to keep us all busy this year and we have a lot to do. In amongst the challenges we face there will be some big events happening – from the county marking its link to the Magna Carta as part of the 800^th anniversary of its origination - to the general election and what the results may mean for the council.

For the next few weeks though my key focus is on the financial challenges we continue to face as a local authority and in this context setting a budget for the council for 2015/16. Our grant from central government continues to reduce – we now know that next year (2015/16) our grant will be cut by a further £15 million. This reduction, combined with rising inflation costs and service pressures, means that we need to find around £30 million of savings.

Last year we successfully delivered savings of more than £25 million. We did this by reviewing all our services, reducing the number of senior managers, delivering services more efficiently and by sharing resources with our key partners; and, in the last four years we have saved over £125 million.

We have always tried to protect our key front line services; particularly those that help the most vulnerable in our communities. But this challenge gets tougher each year as we have to look at the 354 services we provide and the changing demands for these services. We all know that the number of older people is increasing in the county and that this will place pressure on services both for the council and the health service. Reducing services and saving money is not an easy task and the choices and final decisions that we will have to make, will be tough.

It’s down to all of us to look at how we can make these savings and be as innovative as possible in our approach. We remain committed to protecting those who are most vulnerable, as well as continuing to take action to boost the local economy and to work with local communities to help them get even stronger and more able to do more for themselves. In my view the more that communities can do to reduce the pressure on public services the more we can allocate resources where they are most needed.

I firmly believe the challenges we face and the reality of the situation is a discussion that we need to have with the wider Wiltshire public – after all, the decisions that we make will impact on local people and the services we provide to them. That’s why we’re organising a series of public meetings to discuss the challenges we face. These meetings, scheduled around the county, will start later this month ahead of the budget being agreed at full council in February. We want to hear everyone’s views and suggestions for tackling these challenges.

Of course finding efficiencies – a bit like the New Year – offers a fresh approach, a rethink and positive challenge to how and why we do what we do. We’ve got a track record of being innovative – some would say radical – in our approach to delivering change and challenging what we do – just look at our transformation programme; it’s changed how we work, where we work and who we work with by rationalising the office buildings and creating three hubs. 

Our community campus programme is consolidating community assets to provide fit-for-purpose, efficient premises, with the services that a local area needs in accessible locations.

We are being forced to be even more radical and I say bring it on! Gone are the days of doing what we’ve always done and being insular in what we do. Good local services will continue to be delivered but only if we continue to transform and evolve and do things differently and work with others to achieve this.

2015 promises to be an exciting year that will undoubtedly challenge us all and keep us on our toes, and I know that this organisation has talented people who respond well and make what appears the impossible – possible!

Thank you so much for everything you do…

Jane