Working together

As regular readers will know, every day I am delighted and entranced by the seascapes I see as I walk to work. 

Seafront on Tuesday morning

Walking in on Wednesday morning

City Management Board

Tuesday was no exception, as I walked along our seafront to meet with partners in the City Management Board at Jubilee Library. The main focus of our discussion was the way forward; how we respond to the demography, finance and policy challenges that we all face. There was complete agreement across police, universities, health service and council that our agenda of working together with our common vision is the only approach that is going to get us through tough times. Encouragingly, we are all committed to promoting wellbeing, resilience and aspiration and we share a joined up view of public service. We all see a bigger role for volunteering and would very much like to see public service volunteers working across neighbourhoods and communities supported by all the public service organisations of the city.

First joint meeting

Working together sums up the spirit of the first joint meeting of the Health & Wellbeing Board and the Children & Young people’s committee that took place at Hove Town hall on Tuesday afternoon. Councillors, senior health representatives, parents, carers and young people came together to hear about and approve a strategy for joined up services for children with educational special needs or with disabilities. 

Regan Delf presenting the first strategy

Then we went agreed a strategy for adults with learning disabilities which came out of an independent review of services. Both pieces of work involved those who use services and carers and parents. Both pieces of work had the needs and aspirations of service users at their centre and both pieces of work firmly committed us to joining up services and personalising them. The two reports were approved unanimously and set us on a course of making changes.  These changes will improve the experience of service users and will make better use of our resources. It really was a very encouraging meeting and I was moved by the degree of support and agreement for both plans. 

Mark Hendricks presenting the second strategy

Adult Social Care conference

Working together could also have been the theme of the Adult Social Care provider conference that I opened on Wednesday. This annual meeting of staff from across adult social care who work directly with older people, with those with a disability, including a learning disability, is now a firm fixture in my calendar. The session considered change and uncertainty and it also celebrated achievements. 

At the ASC provider conference

Karen Divall presenting at the conference

A highlight for me was Dr Tom Scanlon’s presentation on happiness and mental wellbeing. He left us with a message that a key to happiness is CLANG. CLANG stands for: Connected; Learning; Active; Noticing; Giving.

Dr Tom Scanlon at the conference

Service redesign

Continuing with the theme of working together, I have been encouraged by the tremendous work taking place to develop proposals for service redesign for Refuse Recycling and Parks Services. I know that many staff, as well as external experts, have been engaged with the work. Colleagues from the Executive Leadership Team gave constructive feedback one evening this week. I hope that the proposals will be seen as providing for a secure and efficient future. So it’s very disappointing that we continue a dispute with a small number of drivers who are going to withdraw their labour for a few hours next week and continue a work to rule. I am disappointed that they have not accepted the independent job evaluation. And I am sorry that this action is continuing to undermine the attempts of managers and the vast majority of the staff to demonstrate the reliable service that we want the city to value and recognise. We remain willing to talk to the trade union and its small number of members affected by this dispute.

Budget proposals for 2015/16

Finally we have worked with the administration and leaders of the opposition parties to develop this year’s budget proposals. The budget has been developed alongside the corporate plan and sets out the future purpose, principles, values and priorities for the council. Whichever council tax increase is chosen (0%, 2% or 5.9%), there will be a significant reduction in our budget and changes in the way we do things. We would want to make some of these changes anyway. The two reviews that I mentioned earlier are examples of that. The budget will be considered by Policy & Resources committee next Thursday but final decisions will not be taken until Budget Council on Thursday 26 February.

Thank you for continuing to work together.

Penny