Planning for elections and a marathon weekend

I hope you enjoyed the beautiful Easter weekend. I have to say the sun caught us unawares on Bank Holiday Monday. We enjoyed a wonderful time on Brighton & Hove’s seafront but paid the price with  a need for aftersun cream! Only in Brighton would you find a harpist and a double base along the seafront and I’ve seen both this week.

Hove seafront

Only in Brighton (& Hove)

Planning for the elections

After fresh air and exercise and frolicking with family over the weekend it was back to work on Tuesday, again with a focus on elections preparation.  

Before meeting with my deputy returning officers for an Elections Planning meeting I went to visit the elections team. Here colleagues are working hard to ensure that everybody is able to register under the new individual electoral registration scheme. 

Adam Fishwick and Will Skyrme from the elections team 

Dave Jones and Alessandra Scheiber from the elections team

Fiona Mason and David James from the elections team

Alessandra Scheiber and Tracey Barsley from the elections team 

At the same time they’re processing requests for postal votes, Claire Wardle, elections manager, was working with Mark Wall, head of democratic services, to register nominations for both parliamentary and local election candidates by the deadline of 5pm on Wednesday 8 April.

Mark Wall and Claire Wardle registering nominations 

We published our list of candidates and they can be found on our website.  All of this work is painstaking, involves an awful lot of paper despite the use of new technology where possible, and all of it is absolutely critical for ensuring that we achieve the open and fair elections expected of a mature democracy such as ours. I am grateful for the hard work of the elections team whose labours often go unsung and on whom we very much depend. The pressure is on for them at the moment and they were quick to express appreciation for the support of the contact centre at Hollingdean depot who are fielding phone queries on the election and playing a very important role.

Tony Mernagh's retirement

This week the Mayor and  Mayoress held a reception for Tony Mernagh who as director of the Enterprise Partnership and chair of Brighton & Hove Connected, our strategic partnership, is taking retirement this week. A good gathering of colleagues, including the police, councillors and business representatives came together in the Mayor’s parlour to recognise the huge commitment and talent that Tony has brought to his several roles in the city over many years. Simon Fanshawe gave an entertaining address on everyone’s behalf and it was a fitting send off for someone whom I am sure will continue to play a sparkling role in the city in a voluntary capacity; I hope so anyway. Our warm thanks and appreciation go with Tony into the new chapter of his life. 

Tony Mernagh

Tony with Simon Fanshawe

Modernising our council

If the election has been taking up a good part of my week this week another key focus has been our modernisation agenda. On Wednesday the council’s corporate modernisation delivery board met to review progress and forward plan the way that we will look to make savings, find opportunities to work together with partners and optimise technology. The session was creative and productive and underlined what we all know already; that we have a huge challenge before us. That said, our corporate plan, our sustainable community strategy and the undoubted talent and commitment of managers and staff in the council and across our partners will ensure that we turn our challenge into an opportunity. 

Part of the key to the future lies with our working across both the city region and the wider Coast 2 Capital region overseen by the local economic partnership. Today we are reviewing their business plan for 2015. 

Looking after our children

Finally, my formal week ends with a meeting with Graham Bartlett, the chair of the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). This is a regular opportunity to assure myself that we are doing everything that we can and should be, to ensure that children and young people in the city are safeguarded.

Inevitably there will be some discussion about sexual exploitation and radicalisation of young people as well as the more familiar topics of neglect, physical and sexual abuse and how we are dealing with and learning from these sad cases.  

Marathon weekend

Finally, while not competing in the Marathon myself, the importance of this big weekend as the culmination of months of dedicated training and a big charity fundraiser has not passed me by. I won't be running; I will support from the sidelines. Good luck to all runners, and to the organisers and volunteers who make it happen. I will leave you my tip for health and stamina - useful for a CEO and marathon runners alike....it's hummus and vegetables. Here is my daily lunch!

As ever, thank you for all you are doing.

All the best,
Penny

Preparation, review and laughter

Listening to our residents

Licensing, noise, planning, refuse & recycling, party houses, and the future of the seafront were all issues raised in the Q&A following my talk about my work as CEO to the Kingscliffe Society AGM last Saturday morning. We had a good exchange of information and views and the residents there gave warm feedback on the openness of our session.

At the Kingscliffe Society AGM

Planning for the election

Monday morning started with me recording a short film to introduce training for presiding officers in the election. We will have 128 presiding officers running our polling stations right across Brighton & Hove and their role is absolutely vital. They will be responsible for opening up and running the polling stations, ensuring that everybody registered to vote in the city has the opportunity to participate in a free and fair election. And they are just one group of staff who will be supporting me as Returning Officer in running these elections - Poll Clerks, Count Assistants, Election Team staff, Count Supervisors and my Deputy Returning Officers will make up the team of several hundred.

Make sure you register to vote by 20 April

Later in the day I met with my Head of Elections and the Head of Comms to review our plans. Many people have very little idea about what it takes to run an election and I am hoping that they will be interested to see the short film that we’re going to make about the process to shine a light on what it entails and to make good our commitment to absolute openness and transparency.

Tuesday began with me undertaking the e-training for Presiding officers. This informative training which takes an hour and a half and ends with a test was extremely well put together by the Electoral Commission and it will certainly be a vital part of the training for our staff.

Talking through our actions

But this week has not been only about election planning. I have had the usual round of 121s including with Nev Kemp, our Chief Superintendent from the police, with whom we share so many issues that we are addressing together. Tuesday was also Trans Visibility Day and I was grateful for the update I received from our Policy Team briefing me on the actions we have progressed since the Trans Scrutiny last year.

With Policy Development Officer, David Humphreys

The Trans flag

On one of the brighter days in the week my walk home into the setting sun was a particular delight.

My walk home

Understandably quite a number of people are taking leave this week and so the regular Executive Leadership Team meeting on Wednesday morning had a number of substitutes who came together to share developments and work on a number of the issues including; staff parking, the business development for our Cityclean services and planning the implementation of our directorate plans to support the Corporate Plan.

Our ELT meeting with a few added guests

The Care Act

A high point of the meeting was our celebration that the Care Act came into force on Wednesday and the 491 must dos were almost completed - making us 96.7% “compliant” with over 400 requirements of this act. It’s the biggest change in social care legislation for probably six decades, and marks the moment when the duty of wellbeing becomes enshrined in law. It makes the Adult Safeguarding Board a statutory requirement and gives everybody access to social care assessment and provision. It’s good legislation, yet it will bring a financial challenge as we begin to assess those who are funding their own care, in preparation for taking over that funding when they reach the government ceiling on what they can be expected to pay.

Denise with Dr Glen Mason, Director of People Communities and Local Government, visiting to see how we are leading Health & Social Care change and delivery

Our new “My Life” web pages will support the introduction of the Care Act and allow people to enquire about services and make self-assessments digitally in the future. I must thank Denise D’Souza and her whole team for the fantastic work that they have done to ensure that we can meet the requirements of the act. The amount of work involved cannot be underestimated and has come at a time when other responsibilities and challenges have been piling up as well. Denise would be the first to acknowledge the support from colleagues right across the council and especially ICT, Finance and Communications.

My Life pages on our website

Our Clermont Family Assessment team

Today I have been to visit the Clermont Family Assessment centre team. This multi-disciplinary team of social work practitioners, child therapists, clinical psychologists, family therapist and adult psychiatrist undertake independent assessments and reports for the local authority and the courts and offer a range of individual and group work treatment and therapeutic services to help families experiencing problems. We are extremely fortunate to have this service and I spent a stimulating and encouraging hour talking about the role of the service in the new and changing landscape of childrens’ services. We all agreed that the renewed focus on the value of professional social work and the reinvigorated focus on the family in our work is absolutely the right way to go. I was able to share with them the importance of this service in the wider arrangements for the health and wellbeing of children and families.

l-r: Liz Henstridge, Alyn Pope, Penny Coombs, Binan Taylor, Tony Flynn, Barbara Cohen, Dr Tim Ojo, Michelle Race, Richard Price, Lianne Smith and Nicola Boyle

A little light relief

As a complete contrast, thank you to the communications team for brightening up my day with yesterday’s April Fool.

Our April Fools' Day news story

So if this week’s blog has had a theme I think it’s one of preparation, review and a little laughter.

Well I would like to say that we can look forward to a bright and sunny Easter weekend but I’m not sure there’s evidence to support that! So I leave you with some lovely Spring flowers if not a promise of sun. Get some relaxation if you have a break over the weekend and to those who are running our 24 hour services, as ever, I thank you.

Good wishes,
Penny