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. 

Learning about housing, recycling, our staff survey results and more

Hello everybody

I am writing this at the end of a very busy week, struggling with a cold which that I think is affecting quite a number of us at the moment.

Improving our housing assets

I’ll start by taking you back to last Friday when, in the afternoon and accompanied by Erin who was on her Takeover day from Dorothy Stringer School, I embarked on a Housing Tour guided by Simon Pickles. The purpose of the tour was to demonstrate housing assets working for people and communities, and it did just that. Improvements at Puffin Nursery at the Millwood Centre; external insulation, cladding and rendering at the Bristol Estate; improvements to East Moulsecoomb shopping parade; the development of Coldean Community Corner and finally the Evelyn Court show flat in Portslade were all evidence of improvements being undertaken in the interest of residents and communities. They’re a good example of working together across the council and with partners. The visit was so riveting that I completely forgot to take photos but here’s one from our Homing In magazine feature about Coldean Community Corner. 

Stephania at a workshop in Coldean Community Centre

Bristol Estate - cladded and rended

Budget meetings

A number of budget meetings and mid-year performance reviews with members of ELT don’t make terrific reading, but have been a very important part of my week. Budget papers will be out by the time you read this and will give councillors and the city an opportunity to look at the challenge we face and the options for meeting that challenge. Final decisions on the budget won’t be taken until February.

Developing our management capability 

On Tuesday morning I started the day by dropping in on cohort 10 of the ‘Living our values, every day” management development programme. This programme is really important to me in helping us to steer our culture change and performance agenda. Overwhelmingly, the feedback from the programme is positive and is contributing to improving our management capability. All our managers will take part in the programme and I am delighted that some of our managers who have been through the programme are now supporting it by facilitating. 


I had a feedback session with a number of early participants in the programme and it’s through this sort of event that we can listen, learn and improve future cohorts. The programme’s focus is the management of self, others and service and it draws on a coaching methodology and a good deal of sound research to underpin the experiential learning. At its heart is the expectation that we will all work hard to behave in line with our organisational values and will all deliver on the objectives set in our PDPs. 

Meeting some of the managers from the development course

My mid-year review this week with Jason Kitcat, leader of the council, addressed progress against my objectives and I am pleased that numbers were on track and some exceeded, and some at this stage of the year only partly met.

I hope by now that everybody is recognising how our values can help to create a new culture in the organisation. Openness is increasingly recognised and again this week we have a very  sobering example of how a whistleblowing has led to serious action.

Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility

On Tuesday I visited the Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility and learnt a great deal about how it works. Over half of all of our waste is recycled and most of rest goes to create electricity  feeding into the national grid. The tour was fascinating and the building is certainly an impressive piece of kit, most of it sunk underground. 

Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility

At the control centre

I learnt a great deal and this time I did take a number of photos. One particular fact that stuck with me is that the least recyclable item which we all use is the mattress. It surprises me that when tens of thousands of  mattresses are discarded and replaced every year (particularly in this tourist city), there isn’t a recyclable mattress readily available on the market.  There’s a Dragon’s Den business opportunity for somebody!

Down in the depths of the facility

Burning the rubblish

CMT awayday

On Wednesday the Corporate Management Team were at Portslade Town Hall at an awayday. Our purpose was to work on future planning, thinking beyond next year and was also to receive feedback from this year’s Staff Survey. The headlines from the Staff Survey show that the living our values, everyday management development programme is having an impact which is terrific news. Clearly there is more to do and there was also chastening information in the survey. Less than half of the organisation is really ready for the changes that are facing us and this is something we have got to make progress with. And only a quarter of the participants of the survey believe that we will do anything about it and even fewer think that we did something about last year’s survey. 

CMT awayday in Portslade

This really is a huge disappointment to me because, as we said, in the roadshows a good deal of attention was given to the survey last year  and indeed to actions to address it. Over the last year we have been very consciously working on improving communications, addressing management capability and providing opportunities to improve resilience of staff. Anyway I won’t be downcast and can assure you that again we will  study the survey at a council wide level, within directorates and services, and looking to respond to what we learn. The council is us, it’s not them, and we want it to be serving our residents and supporting and developing our staff as well as can be. Thank you for all that took time to complete the survey and to contribute to the free text; it is all being read and analysed. We’ll publish an overview of the results next week.

An evening with Allsorts

On Tuesday evening Allsorts the local charity supporting LGBT Young people held its AGM and 15th anniversary celebration. It was fascinating to hear how Allsorts came into being steered by Jess, who is still there. The event was lively, informative and value of Allsorts was clear for all to see and feel.

Jess from Allsorts

Health and Wellbeing Partnership

On Thursday afternoon the Health and Wellbeing Partnership Event was held. It involved as many stakeholders in the city’s health and wellbeing system as could attend. Together, in Hove Town hall, we considered progress against the previous Health and Wellbeing Strategy and looked at what might be the key priorities for the next four years. Tackling inequality; ensuring resilient communities; making this a city where young and old can flourish, where those from different backgrounds and all abilities are valued and have their place were all themes of the conversation.

Health and Wellbeing Partnership Event

 The direction of travel is one of promoting positive health and wellbeing and preventing a need for high end care. The approach we are taking to the Health and Wellbeing Board in partnership with the Clinical Commissioning Group and with the  involvement of health and care providers and citizens in the wider system seemed perfectly accepted by those in the room.

Carers’ Summit

And this morning, it was a privilege to be the keynote speaker at the Carers’ Summit held at the Metropole hotel.  I was pleased to thank carers, and staff from the council and the Carers Centre, for their work to support carers who play such a vital role in our health and social care arrangements in looking after people in their homes.  I met a number of individuals whose powerful stories underlined the challenge and rewards of being a carer. I left them to continue with a day of information and fun. 

Speaking at the Carers' Summit

In today’s press

You may have read in the local press today about plans with Standard Life Investments for the Brighton Centre and Black Rock. I had planned to talk about this later in December but as the information is now in the press, I want to share the exciting possibilities that are being worked on to extend Churchill Square, making more of the seafront and develop a state of the art arena and conference centre at Black Rock. This is a scheme with potential to  bring huge investment and  numbers of jobs into the city.  Plans will go to P and R committee for a decision on 16 December. 

So as the initial budget proposals are published and we all see that we are going to have to work differently with less, I hope that we work together holding to our values and making best use of the enormous ability and commitment in the council and the wider city, to continue to make this a fantastic place to live, work and visit.

All the best
Penny