Spring is in the air

Is Spring here? Certainly the mornings are bright. The snowdrops are out and the evenings are lighter and longer.

Bright mornings 

Snowdrops are out

The importance of health and safety

So with the spring in my step and the sun in the sky, I arrived at Tuesday morning’s Health & Safety committee to review performance of the past quarter. I was quite dismayed by the number of trips and falls that have caused colleagues across the council and our schools to experience some nasty injuries and some significant periods off work. We will be doing some campaigning and communications to remind us all to take care of ourselves and colleagues. Violent or aggressive incidents are the second highest cause of health and safety reports and being hit by a moving object or person the third highest. This latter category is not acts of violence but walking into doors or other people. Over the last quarter there were 233 incidents accounting for 642 working days lost. So there is something for all of us to take seriously. I can’t stress how important it is that we do take health and safety seriously in this organisation and I would like to pay testimony both the Health and Safety team, to the trade unions and to all staff and managers who work to keep each other safe every day.

My view at the Health and Safety committee

Planning for our future

Later on Tuesday, you will know by now that, councillors reconvened in Full Council and set a legal budget. The amendment that had been agreed, had been worked on over the past few days. I am pleased that we have the funding for our Corporate Plan which will be agreed at Policy and Resources and Full Council later this month. 


The hard work really starts now. Or should I say the hard work continues now. Over the past three years we have made reductions of £77 million and this year we need to make reductions of £26 million, and this is not going to be easy. It’s going to involve service redesign, stopping doing things, changing how we do things, making the best use of technology and working with our partners. Public servants are committed and resilient and I am sure we will continue to pull together to make sure we deliver on our plans and make the very best use of the financial resources available. But I am under no illusion that this is going to be a challenging year. We will be looking at management layers, spans of control and improving our managerial leadership supported by our culture change and performance programme for managers, Living our values every day which focuses on the performance of self, others and service. That programme is already bearing fruit with staff recognising that behaviours are being driven by our values. We are becoming a learning organisation, open to reviewing how we do things and making changes where necessary.

Our corporate plan

International Women's Day 

'Making it happen' is what we are going to have to do with the budget and corporate plan; it is also the theme of this year’s International Women’s day. I am pleased to be introducing the session today that has been organised by the Women’s Network in the council. We will have the benefit of hearing from comedian Kate Smurthwaite and a workshop on developing resilience. 



Carolyn Bristow. Debbie Waldon, me, Kate Smurthwaite, Sophie Pointer, Adriana Silva



A thank you

Lighter evenings 

Finally, can I thank those who have offered me condolences and recognised the challenge of the last few weeks both personally and professionally. Alongside working with members to create the conditions for setting the budget, I have been caring for my grieving dad and organising my stepmother’s funeral. Having the funeral director hum Elgar’s Nimrod down the phone to help me to select the music for the event, was a warming highlight of my week. The funeral takes place on Monday and I hope it will be a fitting tribute and celebration of a life well lived, enabling my sad dad to move on with the rest of his life. For the time being our little dog is proving a source of huge comfort and exercise for him, which can only be good.

Take care
Penny

Photo of International Women's Day added after post was first published