New year blog

Hello everybody and a very happy new year!

The last sunrise of 2014

Like so many I have spent some time this week reflecting on the year just passed looking to find some highlights and delights, and some learning for planning the year ahead. 

Looking back at the year online

In March 2014 I took my weekly blog online. The thinking behind this was I wanted to be truly accessible to everyone who works for the council and indeed available to those interested in public services, locally and further afield. That first public blog marked the setting of the budget, the agreement to the i360 project and also saw me recounting details of lovemaking turtles whilst I spoke at the opening ceremony for the Brighton Festival Fringe!

Artist's impression of the i360

The following week saw the sign off of our City Deal and the birth of the Greater Brighton Economic Board involving Adur and Worthing, Lewes, Mid Sussex and more recently West Sussex. At the end of March we hosted one of the first gay marriages at a minute past midnight on the 29th of the month. Since then Brighton has become one of the most sought after places in which gay people want to marry and what a wonderful backdrop the city can provide to these heart warming events.

Neil and Andrew were the first same sex couple to get married, at the Royal Pavilion on 29 March 2014

At the beginning of May it was a joy to bear witness to the children’s parade marking the start of the Brighton Festival. Here my photo taking for the blog really took off!

June saw the launch of our internal management development programme focusing on equipping managers to get the best out of themselves, their teams and their services. This developmental programme is rolling out for all managers across the council and provides a really valuable opportunity to improve our management capability and our learning and collaboration across the organisation. Members of ELT and CMT are now sponsoring the individual cohorts and I am pleased to be sponsoring two of them myself. June also saw the annual Chattri service and a service for the commemoration of the D-Day landings in a year that is full of remembrance for those who lost their lives in the service of their country. 

The formal opening of The Level in June was another moment to mark the great developments that are taking place in our city to make it a fantastic place to live, work and visit.

At the opening of The Level in June

An inspirational morning was spent in July with our Senior Managers Forum being addressed by the writer and business woman Margaret Heffernan, whose books on wilful blindness and collaboration have certainly given me excellent food for thought. Margaret’s message very much reinforced the values we are seeking to live in the city council and the passion we feel for ensuring we provide excellent leadership to the city and are at the heart of sound public services.

With Margaret Heffernan at the Senior managers forum in July

At the beginning of August I blogged about Trans Pride and Pride, and then about the shock floods that we were struck by which meant that we had to evacuate Kings House. All that seems so long ago, sitting now in the crisp bright days of the final week of the year.

Our LGBT Workers' Forum float at Pride in August

September was disappointingly disrupted by industrial action from Refuse & Recycling drivers and a return to the disruption which has such a direct effect on residents with an accompanying negative impact on the council’s reputation. I truly hope that we can avoid a return to this as we co-produce a service redesign with business-like sustainability at its core.

In October I highlighted our corporate membership of the College of Social Work and we were delighted to have its Chief Executive, Annie Hudson, come and address social workers gathered up at the racecourse. In the same month we learnt that we had been successful in our bid to the Arts Council for essential works as part of our ambitious plans for a reimagined Dome and Pavilion estate. At the end of the year our delight was enormous when the Heritage Lottery Fund also provided funding to ensure that this project can happen breathing new life into the heart of our city. 

With Erin on Takeover Day in November

In November I was very pleased to be accompanied on Takeover Day by Erin from Dorothy Stringer and she joined me in a fascinating tour of our housing provision across the city.

December saw me presenting on our budget to colleagues from the business community organised by the Economic Partnership. On a  lighter and more uplifting note, I attended the annual schools Christmas concert, it was an utter joy to hear the children from schools across the city come together to sing and celebrate the beginning of Christmas festivities.

Primary Schools concert at the Brighton Centre in December

During the year I have made a significant number of service visits, presented Big Difference awards, met wonderful teachers and young people in some of our schools and celebrated the opening of the Holland Road building which is now part of Hove Juniors.

Hove Juniors building at Holland Road

Along the way I have been touched by the commitment, enthusiasm and creativity of our staff and managers, citizens and partner organisations in public, private and community and voluntary services. Despite the pressure on revenue budgets and the requirement to continue to make significant savings we have, as a city, continued to grow and develop with a number of significant schemes being announced or started through the year. Perhaps the most significant of these will turn out to be the Waterfront project which got the go ahead in a Special Policy & Resources Committee at the end of December.

Looking ahead to 2015

So looking to 2015, where will I be putting my efforts?

Well it will continue to be on providing visible open leadership to the council’s managers and staff. I will also seek to continue to work closely and well with all our politicians on the council as they provide governance to the plans we are implementing and as they agree a budget and a corporate plan for the next year. The planning is also well underway for my Returning Officer duties on the 7 May and that will be a busy weekend when I hope a number of you will apply to work on the election, either at polling stations or at the counts; assisting me in ensuring free, fair elections take place in the city providing us with our Members of Parliament for the next five years and our councillors for the next four. I mustn’t forget the Rottingdean Parish Council election as well.

Over the next year I anticipate that the work of the City Management Board involving our leading police, health, fire service, university and college executives will continue to work together on ensuring the city continues to thrive and function well despite the impact of austerity. I expect that the Health and Wellbeing Board will become an increasingly significant force in its leadership of the health and social care system from cradle to grave. I trust that schools will continue to respond to the challenge of ensuring the best possible education for our children with improvements being made particularly in the secondary offer.
 

All of this will be done against a backcloth of implementing our challenging budget and corporate plan making the council a smaller organisation focused on doing less directly whilst at the same time being evermore open and ever a better partner to citizens and other organisations we work with. So this is going to be another year of challenge and change with the prize being the health and wellbeing of our city, its environment, economy and its citizens, especially the most vulnerable.

Beach huts in front of Kings House

And finally, the last sunset of 2014

Once again I wish you a happy and successful 2015 and look forward to working with you in a spirit of learning and collaboration.

Best wishes

Penny

Winning awards and planning for the future

First of all let me start by thanking all that kept working so hard while I was enjoying a holiday. 

The delights of Copenhagen for five days and then the Dorset Jurassic coast and a couple of days in London gave me a fantastic mixture of art, walking and rest and relaxation. I hope you got something similar over the summer time. 

Henry Moore at the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen

Sculpture made of marine and beach litter in Dorset

A legend

I have come back to a week of awards. At the beginning of the week, our head of policy, Richard Tuset was awarded the modestly phrased ‘I am Legend’ medal for his unstinting efforts behind the scenes to support Pride. The Rainbow Awards, who singled Richard out, have chosen a worthy medallion man.

Richard Tuset and me

The medal

The Queen’s Award

On Thursday I was honoured to be at the Mayor’s Parlour for the presentation for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service to Brighton & Hove Healthwalks. On behalf of her Majesty the Queen, the Lord Lieutenant for East Sussex, Mr Peter Field and Deputy Lieutenant presented the award to Corinna Edwards-Colledge and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leader. Corinna gave a very gracious acceptance speech as the manager of this initiative which has been going on for 11 years ensuring 20 walks a week and something like 30,000 hours of volunteering over the life of the healthwalks initiative. With exercise and friendships produced from this fantastic scheme, there were plenty of enthusiastic volunteers who were delighted by the Queen’s recognition. In the pictures you will see Husnul Haque, Richard Ince and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leaders. 

At the Queen's Award celebration

Corinna Edwards-Colledge (purple dress) with volunteers

Husnul Haque, Richard Ince and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leaders

UK’s best city for restaurants and bars

This week the Mayor and Lady Mayoress received the award for Brighton & Hove in recognition as the UK’s best city for restaurants and bars as voted by readers of Conde Nast publication. This was well-deserved and notable since we pushed London into second place. In the same series of awards, we were recognised as the fifth most popular place to visit in the UK; Edinburgh was voted as the first. 

Lady Mayoress and Mayor

Our award

An unsung hero

Finally this week Kemp Town’s street cleaner Rob Teagle will be recognised as an ‘unsung hero’ in an award he will receive tomorrow from the independent estate agent Paul Bott and Co. 

So quite a week for awards recognising the essence of Brighton & Hove – Pride; volunteering; a fantastic biosphere in which to walk; bars and restaurant that are the best in the country – a cultural and culinary leisure offer and a place to be proud of.

Planning our future

Much of the rest of this week I have spent with colleagues working on the way ahead, our future budget, services and plans. As you know we face significant challenge to take out more than £26 million of current expenditure as part of more than £100 million savings over the next four years. We, like every local authority in the country, have to change both what we do and the way we do things. In Brighton & Hove we are determined that we will change and that we should have, as our guiding star, the vision for the city as agreed by all city partners last year namely ‘Brighton & Hove - the connected city'. Creative, dynamic, inclusive and caring. A fantastic place to live work and visit’. This is what we discussed with senior managers on Wednesday. 

ELT in discussion with senior managers

Our senior managers

This year is a bigger challenge than in recent memory, but although it is daunting and will need significant change, our approach is one of openness in line with our values. So we want to involve all staff in the conversation about how we can change. We intend that the annual roadshows, which are being planned for October, as an opportunity to engage staff in this significant change.

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing lots of information with you and you'll be hearing more from your manager soon. 

That’s all for now.
Penny 

Better together – the value of collaboration

Much has been said on social media and in the press about fabulous Pride last weekend. Let me just add my two pennies worth.

Celebrating Pride

The day was a really fine example of the city coming together and attracting people from all over the country to celebrate openness, acceptance, and happiness. It was a delight to meet our staff on the LGBT Workers' Forum bus. And it was special to talk with Miss Trans International, Dee Burger, who later told me that the bottle of water I gave her prevented her from wilting! 

LGBT Workers' Forum Pride float

 

Miss Trans International - Dee Burger

Having waved all of the floats off, I was able to follow the parade in an open top bus with my colleagues Paula, Martin and Richard. There we met Joy who had travelled up from Devon for a week in Brighton. Her happiness, the exuberance of the crowds along the way, (20 to 30 deep at some points) and then the bustle at the park were quite awe-inspiring. I am sure Paul Kemp who organises Pride must have felt very proud if a little exhausted. This event gets bigger every year and the feedback that I have received tells me that the organisation this year was excellent. The work to ticket and manage the St James’s Street party in the evening was a success too. So thanks to all involved who made this annual event so spectacular and heart-warming.

A fantastic event

 

First World War Memorial Service

Monday began with a more sombre event when we marked the joining of the First World War by this country.

Poppies in our city

A short commemorative service at the Royal Sussex Regiment war memorial was attended by Roger French, Deputy Lieutenant, the Sheriff of East Sussex, and a number of councillors, senior officers, local MP Caroline Lucas and members of the public. However the event became lively as Father John blessed a commemorative World War One heritage bus and it was launched on to our roads carrying us to the Mayor’s Parlour.
 

World War One heritage bus

You will see it running routes across Brighton & Hove throughout the four years of commemoration of the First World War. The work undertaken by the bus company, the council and The Keep combines together to produce a travelling memorial and history exhibition; a really creative idea.

The lively Emporium

On Tuesday, I had a number of meetings including with Richard Bradley, the new head of City Clean, who I wish very well in his new and vital role. I also visited London Road and the Open Market. We were there to meet the new Minister for High Streets and Seafronts, Penny Mordaunt MP. We waited for her in the Emporium on London Road, a lovely café and theatre bar run by Chris Gull, who is also vice Chair of the Rainbow Fund.

Chris Gull at the Emporium

There I talked with Greg Hadfield of Brighton & Hove Independent and councillors Geoffrey Bowden and Ian Davey, Joe Nichols the London Road City manager, Ann Townsend, chair of the Portas pilot and local business man Trevor Freeman. 

With Rev Philip Wells

All of these colleagues had been brought together by Rob Dawson from our economic development team. They have been supporting the Portas pilot on London Road and have been very successful. It was encouraging to know that Ann, Trevor and other local business people are hoping to form a community interest company in the area to continue their work. The Emporium was a lively place on Tuesday afternoon and it was a joy to meet two buskers Dani and Shani, who study at Brighton Institute of Modern Music.

Buskers Dani and Shani

While in the Open Market, I met Paul Reynolds a local florist and Philip Wells who chairs the London Road Local Action team (LAT). We were also able to meet the town centre liaison officers, Nick and Spencer, who while working 16 hours a week, over the last year have managed to reduce thefts in the area. Thefts from Maplins have reduced by a staggering 70%. The Minister was impressed with what she saw and the people she met and I hope there will be some transitional funding to further support the development of the area.

A busy Wednesday 

Wednesday is meetings day and as usual the executive leadership team met and we also had a meeting of the Modernisation Delivery Board. This board is overseeing our council modernisation programme, a key part of our budget strategy. The delivery board is attended by all of ELT and the heads of human resources, communications, and performance and programmes. Wednesday was a busy day; not only did we have a press announcement from the police, I was also being shadowed by Andy Hollingsworth, a senior officer from SOLACE (Society of Local Authority of Chief Executives). I hope he found it useful and informative.

In the afternoon Andy joined me and other council officers at a summit that I was chairing to discuss with a wide range of stake holders how we can make the Royal Pavilion Gardens a safer place for citizens and visitors. These gardens surrounding the peoples palace that is the Royal Pavilion are the heart and lungs of the city. Yet sometimes they can feel intimidating and unpleasant due directly to the behaviour of a small and visible minority of people of who misuse the area with their anti-social drinking, littering, defecating and occasionally violent behaviour. The summit was well attended and came up with a short list of action to pursue, including reviewing the cleaning and security arrangements and looking into the possibility of volunteer schemes and some cutting back of vegetation.

Wednesday underlined to me the importance of our values, including respect and collaboration, ensuring that we listen and take seriously concerns raised by people whether publicly or confidentially. I hope all staff and citizens are noticing that ours is an open and listening culture. I do not want there to be an organisational silence when there are issues that should be raised and addressed.

Ladies Day at Brighton Racecourse

With Joy

Yesterday I was able to accept an invitation to lunch at Ladies Day at the racecourse. This was my first visit to Brighton Racecourse and sadly because of the pressure of work I could only see one race. However it was good to meet Joy again who had been on the pride bus on Saturday. And I valued a business discussion with Tony Kelly, Manager Director of ARC racing and leisure group who runs Brighton Racecourse who has a  commitment to the city and its continued vibrancy.

Head of Communications

Corinna Allen

Finally, following a substantial interview process I am pleased to announce that Corinna Allen has been appointed as Head of Communications here. Corinna’s passion for the role, sound analysis of what needs to be done and her skills and experience are exactly what the local authority and partners need, and I wish her every success.

That is by no means everything for this week but I am sure it is quite enough! Enjoy your weekend and I hope the storm avoids us.