Collaboration for Christmas

Much of my waking life is preoccupied at the moment with the future of the local authority and our public service partners in the face of the financial reductions that we all have to make. Collaboration with chiefs of other local authorities and police, fire, colleges and the voluntary sector is taking place every day as we think and plan a way ahead. 

Official opening of Hove Juniors Holland Road

So Monday afternoon’s official opening of Hove Juniors Holland Road site was a wonderful and welcome relief. Here, all the children of the new school and their teachers, parents, governors and a number of the local police came together to celebrate the transformation of Hove Police station into a state of the art school and a wonderful celebration it was too. The children sang; Janis Taylor, executive head, acknowledged the fantastic work with the council, the police and her own staff and we all left with a skip in our step seeing what excellent collaboration could do to improve the experience and life chances of our youngest citizens. One highlight for me was feedback that a survey of the children, regarding their first term in school, had come out with 100% satisfaction and delight. What I would give for a 100% satisfaction survey! 

Pupils at Hove Junior school Holland Road site

Pupils at Hove Junior school Holland Road site

Janice Taylor, headteacher at Hove Juniors

Inspector Jason Hazzard

New council candidates evening

On the same evening we hosted an open day for potential council candidates in next year’s elections. More than 30 people came to learn more about the role and responsibilities of a local authority councillor and while we didn’t get 100% feedback in our evaluation we very nearly did! I was grateful to Abraham, head of law, and Claire, elections manager, and Cian, my senior executive officer, for joining me in hosting and presenting to this session. We will be doing another session in January.

The Waterfront project

Tuesday saw a very significant decision taken by a Special Policy and Resources Committee which approved, in principle, the plans for the council to work together with Standard Life and Venue Ventures on the development of a scheme we are calling the Waterfront project. 

The Waterfront project

While final decisions have not yet been made, this initial decision gives the green light to detailed preparatory planning for a replacement conference centre and arena on the Black Rock site and an extension of Churchill Square shopping and entertainment centre down to the seafront.

The proposed new shopping area

The cross party support, for this significant investment of more than £540 million into the project and the intended results for our city, was extremely encouraging and testimony to an enormous amount of work that preceded the meeting. I would like to thank colleagues in the council and those in Standard Life and Venue Ventures for, again, another really fruitful collaboration. 

Inter-agency working

Tuesday was a very busy day and at lunch time Jason Kitcat, leader of the council and I met with Katy Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner, for one of our regular meetings. This time we focussed on the budget and future plans for both our organisations. We also covered a number of other issues including travellers, domestic violence and the high premium we put on effectively working together across the local authority and the police. 

Meeting with Katy Bourne, PCC

That evening the chief executives of West Sussex, East Sussex and myself plus our community safety managers met with Giles York, the chief constable, and a number of his senior officers to continue the theme of financial and service planning. We also heard early thoughts on what might be a new operating model for the police to respond to significant reductions in funding. That we are working closely together to try and ensure that our plans compliment and do not have perverse consequences, has got to be a good thing.  

At the Brighton & Hove Connected meeting on Tuesday afternoon the budget was, again, a key focus. Once again I found myself presenting both the challenge and the approach we are taking to prepare options for council members to decide in February. As you know, we are out for consultation on our budget and corporate plan. There will be difficult choices to make and it is inevitable that taking £26 million out of the council’s budget will have a knock on to both jobs and services. What we are trying to do, is to ensure that proposals are made in the context of further reductions that will be required in the next three to four years and the importance of prioritising our ability to provide civic leadership ensuring the continued health and wellbeing of our citizens, our environment and our economy.

More meetings

Wednesday is always a big meetings day and this week was no exception, with a Modernisation Board, an Informal Chairs meeting and Executive Leadership team meeting. All of these focussed on managing the here and now and managing the modernisation and development of the council as a public service business operating in a digital age with reducing funding.

The local government finance settlement

Thursday’s local government finance settlement was announced and it’s to the great credit of our finance colleagues that the forecast that we had been working on was correct to an incredible level of detail. So while there was no good news, the situation is no worse than we are planning for.  

A visit from the Ministry of Justice

A morning of internal meetings was followed by a valuable and much appreciated visit from Ursula Brennan who is Permanent Secretary (ie the head of) the Ministry of Justice. Ursula and I have been working as “buddies” for more than a year looking to learn from each other and cement connections between local and central government. I hosted a lunch time meeting involving the police, probation and community safety leads as well as the Abraham, head of law, and we reflected on changes to the court system, the probation service and offered feedback on how arrangements are playing out locally.  

Inspire project 

From this, Ursula and I went to visit Brighton Women’s Centre to hear more about the Inspire project, a collaborative third sector service commissioned to work with women offenders. The testimony of one courageous service user really brought the value of the scheme to life and it was an excellent session, again reflecting the importance of collaboration and diversity in our city’s provision of public services.

Coldean Community Corner

You may remember that I wrote a few weeks ago about a visit to Coldean Community Corner. The project featured on Latest TV this week; a nice positive project in the community that I'm proud we're part of. 

Christmas wishes

I’d like to end this week’s blog with a picture of Tuesday’s sunrise as I walked to work and a message of peace and hope that all of you enjoy a wonderful Christmas and that you find time for some well earned rest and fun with family and friends.  

These are tough times for public services, there is an enormous amount of need, high expectations and ever reducing resources and it requires all of us to be creative, collaborative and resourceful. 

Can I finally end by congratulating the Adult Social Care team for surpassing themselves in their wonderfully decorated Christmas theme?

Kings House room G31 

One of the ASC Christmas displays

I will leave you with that festive picture and wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Penny

The Christmas season gets underway

Well winter is truly upon us and I don’t think you have to be religious to appreciate the advent beach huts. 

Hove seafront

Last Sunday night, our dog Merry and I took a look at the display for the 7th and found the Holly and the Ivy. 

Beach Huts advent calendar

Primary school Christmas concert

Staying on the Christmas theme, I along with a number of colleagues, many councillors and a Brighton Centre full of parents and children, enjoyed the annual primary school Christmas concert. Yet again, Peter Chivers and his team pulled off a stunning show where literally hundreds of young people from all of our primary schools across the city came together as one city children’s choir.

Primary school concert at the Brighton Centre

They entertained us with songs that we knew and songs that were being played in public for the first time. We heard two original singing compositions and one original percussion piece. As ever, the children were enthusiastic and singing heartily while behaving impeccably. A wonderful night was had by all.

Another beautiful sky

Walking to an early meeting

The next day the morning sky, as I walked to an early meeting in Brighton, was fantastic. Not for the first time I reflected  on how lucky I am to live in this beautiful city and enjoy  the visions of the sea and the sky as the sun came up. 

The West Pier

City Management Board

The City Management Board I was chairing that day is attended by the most senior managers at both universities, the police, hospital, CCG, probation and the fire service. We had a valuable meeting reflecting on the performance of the city and the ways in which we can work together better to improve the lives and wellbeing of our citizens. The board’s annual report will be shared with Brighton & Hove Connected next week. 

Health and Wellbeing Board

At the Health & Wellbeing Board on Tuesday, we agreed with health partners on the commissioning intensions of the Clinical Commissioning Group; our crisis care concordat, outlining an effective response to those with a mental health crisis; and we discussed the important issue of access to GPs and the role of primary care. 

Health and Wellbeing Board

Our commitment to personalisation and prevention is written through our Better Care Fund plan which was reported as approved by the Department of Health. 

Health and Wellbeing board

Goodbye to Catherine

Straight after the meeting we hot footed it to Catherine Vaughan’s leaving do where her 13 years’ service to the council and the city was celebrated and recognised in good style. We wish her every bit of luck and success for the future.

Catherine saying goodbye

Catherine's leaving do

Discussed by ELT

On Wednesday, at our weekly ELT (Executive Leadership Team) meeting, I was pleased to have an extensive discussion about Our Business Strategy for a Digital Age. I hope that we will soon be making very explicit some of the developments underway to improve access to services for our citizens and their ability to do much of their business with us online, if that suits them. I very much hope we will be able to pull together our contact centre arrangements and I look forward to all of us who live in the city being able to have a ‘My Account’ making dealing with the council easier. Also, at ELT, we discussed the results of the staff survey. We are working hard both to make sense of the key messages and more importantly to firm up on actions that need to be prioritised and communicated clearly, just as we did last year.

Christmas Trees

Finally for those in Kings House, you may have seen the rather strange construction that is our Christmas tree, made from rubbish found on the beach. It rather took me by surprise as I thought we were doing a Christmas tree based on a theme of moving away from paper files as part of our Workstyles initiative. Indeed I gather such a construction will be at Barts House on Monday. It’s always the little things that attract attention and become talking points. Let’s try to focus on recycling, anti-littering and working smartly in a digital age.

Kings House christmas tree

Beach rubbish being reused

 

Sharing learning

This morning I am speaking at Brighton & Hove’s Policing Leadership Forum sharing some of my learning and my approach to managerial leadership. This afternoon, Jason Kitcat the leader, and I will be in public scrutiny on the council’s budget proposals. 



Penny with colleagues from the police

Keep warm and keep well over these chilly days.

Best wishes
Penny

Edited 12 December at 1.15pm to add picture from Policing Leadership Forum

 

A challenging winter lies ahead

Winter is here

Well winter really is with us and we are getting some fantastic skies, this was the sky last Friday evening at sunset. With winter comes winter planning and work to ensure that the city keeps moving and the most vulnerable are supported. To this end, the Health and Wellbeing Board will receive a comprehensive report next week on the way in which the city is planning to cope with winter. In advance, let me thank everybody whose efforts will contribute to the wellbeing of our city and its residents over the colder and shorter days in the coming weeks and months.

Winter sunset last Friday

The heart and lungs of the city

On Monday morning I caught up with Jim Mayor and Emma Friedlander who took me through the plan for the redevelopment of the Valley Gardens. Over the next two and a half years, we will see the lungs of the city transformed with a changed traffic flow, landscaping and other developments to return this to become a key city park rather than a glorified traffic island. This is just one initiative among several which will contribute to the continuing evolution to the heart and lungs of our city.
 
The recent excellent news about heritage lottery funding alongside Arts Council funding , will allow the reimagining of the Dome and Royal Pavilion Estate, which will also play a significant part in these exciting developments. As you may know from recent publicity, we are also at an early stage of discussion and negotiations about extending Churchill Square down to the seafront and creating a state of the art conference centre and arena at Black Rock. All of these are future based plans, drawn up to continue to keep the city developing in a positive way for our residents as well as keeping us on the visitor map and one of the best loved places in the country.

Jim Mayor and Emma Friedlander

An evening of celebration and commemoration

On Monday evening it was an honour and pleasure to participate in the 40 years anniversary celebrations of the Brighton Women’s Centre and to hear its President, Baroness Joyce Gould speak of its history and the valuable work that the centre has done and continues to do in the city.

From this celebration, I walked swiftly down to New Steine Gardens where a substantial and moving crowd commemorated the lives lost to Aids. Monday was World Aids Day and I was one of the almost 30 speakers who read out the names of local victims of the Aids virus and held commemorative candles in their memory. The fight against this pernicious disease has made fantastic strides but there is no room for complacency nor should we forget.

At the council’s quarterly Health and Safety Committee this week, I noted again that acts of violence and aggression are the top cause of hazards to staff closely following trips and falls. I would like to remind everybody that we do have training and development to support staff who work in our more challenging areas of service. I would encourage everybody to report any incidents so that we can prevent, respond and learn.

The Aids memorial at New Steine Gardens

Planning for our future

On Tuesday evening, I addressed the city’s Economic Partnership, which had invited the business community to come and hear about the council's budget and to participate in a question and answer session. It was with no delight that I outlined the very challenging position that faces us in line with the wider family of local government and indeed all public services. I gave a high level outline of the scale of our challenge and the approach we are taking which is one of modernising, prioritising and adapting to become a council in the digital age. It seems to me that our key purpose, as a smaller organisation, is going to be one of providing civic leadership to the health and wellbeing of our most vulnerable citizens, to the environment in which we live and to the economy. Our approach is going to be one of collaborating with citizens and partners in all sectors and harnessing the power of the internet, social media and other developments.  During the evening, there was a very constructive discussion, and I was pleased to be supported by Geoff Raw, executive director Environment, Development and Housing and Nick Hibberd, head of City Regeneration, in answering the helpful incisive questions that were put. The event was televised by Latest TV. I had a real sense that the business community wants to play its positive part in supporting our quest to manage change in challenging times.

Seated at the table from left: Nick Hibberd, Penny Thompson and Geoff Raw answering questions from the business community.

Policy and Resources discussed the draft budget report yesterday evening (Thursday) and it will go to Full Council on the 11 December. Then the budget proposals enter the consultation phase which runs until Thursday 26 February 2015, when Full Budget Council should take a decision. This year we are publishing the draft corporate plan and medium term financial strategy at the same time as the budget, in a clear wish to ensure our financial and service planning are joined up and that we have a longer term horizon for  developing the finances of  the council. The Stop, Start, Change initiative continues and ideas have already fed into proposals and will continue to inform the consultation phase.

Great response from staff

I want to thank everyone who was involved in managing the effects of a fire that broke out at the Princess Royal Hospital yesterday afternoon.  Many staff worked tirelessly to arrange for patients to be discharged, and colleagues in the independent sector made a number of beds in nursing homes available to us. It was an outstanding example of public service and partnership working - going the extra mile and keeping people safe.  Special thanks to our staff Grace Hanley, Marion Joslin and Marcus Brooks. Also thanks to Paul Burns in the independent sector and one of his managers, Sharon McNamara.

Just this morning

Panel at the Adult Safeguarding conference from left to right: Claire Crawley, Senior Policy Manager at the Department of Health, Denise D'souza, and Penny Thompson

This morning (Friday) I opened the Annual Adult Safeguarding Conference. I was pleased to see so many colleagues across the city’s organisations who contribute to the safety and wellbeing of adults in Brighton & Hove. It was extremely encouraging to see the commitment to learning and improving our working together as we step up to the challenge of the new Care Act which will put adult safeguarding on a statuary basis.

Also this morning you may have read in the media that our interim executive director of Finance and Resources has started and a thorough handover is underway. The next budget will be extremely challenging as we need to save up to £26 million pounds and this role is pivotal. Rachel Musson’s appointment was a cross party decision and the agency fee is the market rate for the expertise we need.  We would not have been able to fill this role at this level on a permanent basis immediately. Rachel is passionate about the wellbeing of this city and will be working hard with ELT to ensure we achieve the best possible outcomes for Brighton & Hove.

I should end by acknowledging that these are challenging times for staff, managers and citizens alike and I very much appreciate that the change that we are going through is not easy. That said, I am determined to approach our challenges as opportunities and to seek to continue to improve as a council and a city by working together. Thanks for all you do.

 

Best wishes,

 

Penny