Working to our Corporate Plan

A good life

Monday was a difficult day. I illustrate it with a funereal sky, with a glimmer of pink. My step mother’s funeral was a fitting event. It marked and celebrated a good life with family and friends. We remembered my stepmother, less for her final difficult years enduring Alzheimer’s, and more for her independent, adventurous and creative years in her work, her marriage and her artistry.  Alzheimer’s is topical this week, particularly with the sad and early death of Sir Terry Pratchett, who endured early onset dementia with such grace and humour. 

A funereal sky

 
Supporting citizens with life changing and limiting conditions and supporting their carers has got to be at the heart of our purpose even when we’re facing limited and reducing resources. In the corporate plan, that will be discussed next at the Policy and Resources committee, a good life is one of the four strands of our purpose. We want to ensure that we have a city for all ages inclusive of everyone and protecting the most vulnerable.

A vibrant economy

Wednesday, by contrast to Monday, ended up being a day of surprise and celebration. A group of us from the council’s Economic Development team, led by the head of city regeneration, Nick Hibberd and supported by Jason Kitcat and I headed off to London to the Local Government Chronicle awards. Here, to our surprise and delight, we won the only award we had entered - the Driving Growth award. 


Jason and me on the train home


This award recognises the creative work we have done to achieve a City Deal for Brighton & Hove and our partner districts. It acknowledges how we developed the concept of Greater Brighton with a commendable track record of new jobs, start-up companies and an economy that is thriving with cultural, creative, hospitality and digital industries at its heart. This award is won for us – the council, our  partners locally and also the whole of Greater Brighton. We were quite delighted to achieve the recognition of our peers in a category that was very competitive. A vibrant economy is the second strand of our purpose. We want to promote a world class economy with a local workforce to match and we cannot be complacent even with the achievement of this award.
 

Our city regeneration team

A well run city

On Thursday I was pleased to introduce, alongside Jason Kitcat, a Community Safety Summit involving our partners from health and the police and also our diverse community and voluntary sector. 

Richard Butcher Tuset and others at the summit

Delegates at the summit

We came together to discuss how we can sustain Brighton & Hove being a demonstrably safe place and tackle some of our key community safety challenges with reduced resources. Our proposition and discussions were that we can achieve more by involving with our communities more. We heard a stimulating and encouraging presentation from Lisa Perretta, business crime reduction manager, from our Business Crime Reduction Partnership. Very quickly we were thinking about transferable learning from the very exciting schemes that she runs, which are fully funded by local businesses. This summit was absolutely in line with the third strand of our purpose: a well run city, which is kept clean, safe, moving and connected. We will not achieve this alone, rather by pulling together across community and voluntary sector, private businesses as well as the public sector. There was terrific support for the notion of a joined up public service ethos and effort across all our sectors. 

A modern council

I have just come from a really stimulating meeting about our approach to equalities. Along with colleagues from across the senior management team,  and with representatives from our Workers Forums, we agreed that we need to redouble our efforts to make sure we meet the equality standard for local government. We need to give equal efforts to being an inclusive, effective organisation for all our staff; including every protected group, favouring none.  

I have been to a celebration of our apprentices this afternoon where many have graduated from their scheme. Our apprentices are fundamental to the organisation. We need to create opportunities for young people in our organisation so that we develop our talent base. I was delighted to join them today. These meetings contribute to the fourth strand: to be a modern council, providing open civic leadership and effective public services; a good employer. 

Penny with Sue Moorman at the apprentice celebration

Our council apprentices at the celebration 

These four strands; a good life, a well run city, a vibrant economy, a modern council; will deliver our proposed purpose of providing strong civic leadership for the wellbeing and aspiration of our city, Brighton & Hove. My week, this week, has been a fine illustration of the importance of that purpose, supported by our values and work objectives in action.

Our corporate values and work objectives

Update: Silver IIP award

I'm just out of a feedback meeting with our Investors in People (IIP) assessors, and I'm pleased to announce we have achieved a silver award. This is fantastic news and a huge testament to the whole organisation. I would like to thank all staff and managers, and in particular the support of Caroline Bottrell, our Head of Organisational Development. 

Have a good weekend.
Penny


Blog amended at 16.46 on Friday 13 March.