Active citizenship

Active kids

Active citizenship starts young and last Saturday’s Children’s Parade, kicking off the May Brighton Festival, was a fantastic example of this. The wonderful creations that schools, parents and children had made on the theme of 'taking flight' was a real inspiration.  The Festival director, Ali Smith, shared with me her wonder and delight at the spectacle  and the wide engagement that was on display on New Road. How wonderful to see children claiming the streets and Brighton & Hove revealing itself as a child and family friendly place to live, work and visit.  

Hove Museum

The theme of active citizenship continued into election day. After further preparations, training and anticipation, election morning brought me to Hove Museum to cast my vote and to meet the polling staff wearing my Returning Officer hat. 

Me at Hove Museum 

As an added bonus I met Sylvia and her dad. Sylvia was also casting her vote and I was delighted that she and her dad agreed to be photographed with her home-made ballot paper in front of one of the wonderful, magical machines currently on display in Hove Museum. 

Sylvia casting her vote

Hove Museum as a polling station must be one of the best polling stations in the UK. In order to cast your vote you had to pass by these wonderful Rowland Emett creations. Emett was the creator famously of the fabulous flying car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and at the moment you can see other fantastic inventions. Sylvia was delighted to pose infront of her chosen one. It seems to me it can only be a good thing to start to introduce children to the notion of democracy and active citizenship and that’s what Sylvia’s dad was doing. I visited a number of other polling stations through the day and was struck by the enthusiasm of our polling staff and the seriousness with which they had taken up my challenge. It was that we must be the most voter friendly place encouraging everybody to be able to participate fairly and freely in both the national and local elections.

One of Rowland Emett's creations

About Rowland Emett

Another of Rowland Emett's creations

Promoting the Festival at Hove Museum

Parliamentary elections count

After a rehearsal at the Brighton Centre on Thursday afternoon my trustee count supervisory team went off to get a little rest in preparation for a very long night into morning.

Our count supervisory team

Abraham, Paula and me dressed for the evening

At the start of the evening

We assembled at the count mid evening and then began, for me, a whirl of press discussion and oversight of the complicated arrangements that achieve the delivery of a safe, credible election result. This year our Elections and Communications teams prepared a really helpful leaflet on the election process and we held to our value of openness in making sure that everybody at the count was aware of the stages of the process that we were engaged in.  

Busy counting

On stage at the Brighton Centre

Announcing Brighton Kemptown results

Announcing Hove results

Announcing Brighton Pavilion results

Just some of the media pack at the Brighton Centre

In the end, the exercise that involves checking and verifying postal votes and the overall voting numbers was not complete until past 3am.  Some counting of votes had begun by 2am, but the first result I was able to announce was Brighton Kemptown result at 6.50am this morning. This was followed fairly closely by first the Hove constituency and then Brighton Pavilion. As you will know we now have a Conservative, a Labour and a Green MP representing our three constituencies. The average turn out for the election was over 70%. There were no requested recounts and all candidates declared themselves confident in the results and complimented all of our count staff and elections team on the committed and effective work they had done. 

I would like to lend my profound thanks to everybody who worked so tirelessly to bring the Parliamentary Election to a safe conclusion. In particular, I would like a mention for my Executive Leadership Team and colleagues from the Corporate Management Team who became count supervisors and added so much to the effective running of the night and morning. I must also acknowledge the fantastic work of our Communications team who again worked all through the night and ensured that the huge press pack who were with us were properly informed and supported throughout the event.  

Local elections count

It all starts again tomorrow morning with the count for the Local Government elections and I’ll update you when that is done. Clearly I am the most politically restricted person in the city. My first and only focus is on ensuring a free and fair election and the certainty that everyone is able to exercise their right to vote, which was so hard fought for. So back to active citizenship starting young; I hope that Sylvia will be inspired to take an interest in local and national democracy and to properly cast her ballot when the time comes. Until then I know that George, her stuffed rabbit, will have been delighted to have been her chosen vote!  

The end of the Ofsted inspection

Finally for all of those not involved in the elections, thank you for keeping our services going and to all of those in Children’s Services both in the council, and in our partner agencies thank you for keeping going through the gruelling four weeks that Ofsted have been inspecting us.  Today marks the end of that inspection and I very much hope that we’ve done ourselves justice and revealed ourselves to be committed to further learning and improving ensuring a good life for all our children and young people.

Thank you and all the best
Penny

Tuesday 12 May update:

After a long day counting on Saturday we have now announced the results of the local election. Thank you to all the staff who helped again at the Saturday count, may of whom had also worked on Thursday night. I am proud to say that we delivered a safe election for the city.

I will now meet the three group leaders on Wednesday to discuss the new administration.