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

Recognising outstanding efforts

Hello everybody

I hope that if you have had some holiday over the last week and that it has been relaxing and restoring; it certainly was for me. I am grateful for my colleagues who held the fort and covered my responsibilities, including my 'gold' cover - that’s my out of hours duties for major emergencies in the city.

Heroic efforts on the seafront

Of course many of our staff were working hard and an email I received whilst I was away outlining the heroic efforts of Chaz Branson of our seafront services is just one example. Over the weekend, Chaz rescued a struggling swimmer at 7am in the morning and later gave first aid at both a traffic accident and to somebody who dislocated her hip on the beach. Well done to him and all the team for those efforts. It’s just a reminder of the important and often unsung work that is done by so many colleagues in the council.

Chaz on the seafront

Big Difference shortlist

It is fitting then that we are planning the Big Difference Awards which will be held on Thursday 20 November. I can announce that those shortlisted for the team award are: 

• a project team from Mears - for their sensitive work with a housing tenant when working on a property, and
• the Cityclean contact centre with the corporate support team - for their work during the refuse and recycling disruption over the past few months

On the individual shortlist are:

• Sam Rouse in public health for his work with the taxi trade to improve air quality in the city and
• Paul Diplock in procurement for his work to solve a difficult case with a housing tenant.

Work to rule suspended

 

Another vital service that I often mention is that of refuse and recycling. It’s frequently one of the only services that residents recognise from the council. Of course they get very upset and concerned when their collections do not come as expected.

So I am really delighted and appreciative of the fact that the drivers have voted to suspend the current industrial action and I can assure them that the work to review and redesign the service is being taken seriously and will take place at pace. I know that Richard Bradley, head of Cityclean and City Parks, is keen to ensure that normal services are back up as quickly as possible and that a good reputation can be restored. We very much want to see the service being able to grow its business and a reputation for reliability is absolutely essential for that to happen.

Safe and Secure

Today, I undertook my Information Governance training which is something every member of staff must do. Information Governance is not only about written information or computerised information, it it also involves being aware of security in the buildings for example tailgating when you go through restricted access doors. The training is very easy to undertake and can be accessed through Surf2Learn on the Wave. Can I ask that you do prioritise a short period of time to do the training? At the end of it there is a test and I am pleased to say I achieved 92%, I will be going back to try and get those last two answers right!


Going through the Safe and Secure training

Remembrance Sunday

Finally, just to note that Remembrance Sunday takes place this weekend and I, along with colleagues from ELT, will be attending services at the memorial in the Steine, Grand Avenue, All Saints Church in Hove and the Synagogue.

Art work at Hove Junior school

This year’s anniversary has certainly caused a great deal of heart searching and creativity and I am reminded of the wonderful visit I did in the year to Hove Junior school where they had dedicated a school project to the First World War and had developed some amazing writing and art as a result.

Sadly I haven’t yet seen the poppies at the Tower of London but they have been a source of emotional journey for many people and provoked an interesting set of discussions in the media. I was given one of the ceramic poppies for my birthday and it will arrive when the installation is taken down.

Enjoy your weekend.

All the best

Penny

New term challenges and opportunities

Hello everybody

New term, new campus

The start of the new term was an especially exciting one for some of the pupils at Hove Junior School who started this week in their new satellite campus site in Holland Road. Formerly this was Hove Police Station and thanks to collaboration between the police, the council and the tremendous work of our property and design team, the building has been transformed into a superb school site. Here is a link to a feature on Meridian news from Monday where you can hear the enthusiasm of pupils and the headteacher.

Hove Junior School with its new solar panelled extension

The new school hall

A new classroom

Disruption to refuse and recycling 

As readers of my blog know, collaboration and change are two themes of life at the moment and for the foreseeable future. So I am disappointed to say that my week was somewhat clouded at the prospect of a return of the disruption to the city’s refuse and recycling service.

I had hoped that constructive conversations between the council, trade unions and the staff would allow us to avoid this action. Its focus is that the refuse and recycling driver charge hands are unhappy about the grade of their jobs. As with the case for all jobs, the grade was determined using the council’s job evaluation scheme to ensure fairness and consistency across our workforce and so we cannot change that for one group of staff.

What citizens need is a safe, regular and reliable service and what they don’t need is the threat of action that will see the return of rubbish piling up on the streets. I very much hope that respectful discussions will lead to the action ceasing and enable a resumption of conversations focusing on modern practices and flexible working with the interest of residents as the first priority.

I can’t say enough about the legal and financial constraints in which we are operating. We cannot resist change, and I would rather we embrace all the opportunities for improving services and recognise that nothing stays exactly the same. We can’t put the interests of residents, and our colleagues, in jeopardy. I urge everybody involved to find an alternative way forward.

Positive collaboration in Pavilion Gardens 

Turning back to the theme of positive collaboration, I was pleased to know that the recent summit I chaired on improving cleanliness in the heart of the city is leading to action. On Wednesday, the litter pick in the Pavilion Gardens orchestrated by the Argus, was a real success.

Volunteers at the litter pick in Pavilion Gardens

Thank you to everybody who took part. I hope that there is going to be a regular repeat of this activity so that we can begin to change the behaviour of the few who make this place dirty and intimidating. It should be the blooming beautiful public space in the heart of the city that the Royal Pavilion and Dome deserve.

Working together for our health and wellbeing

Collaboration is also a theme of the work of our Health and Wellbeing system with the Health and Wellbeing board at its heart. On Tuesday the board met and took some important decisions on the future of working together between health and social care including the provision of equipment for residents who need aids and adaptations to help them in their home. These decisions, after serious preparation and considerations, will lead to changes in the way equipment is managed, cleaned and distributed in Brighton & Hove. It will mean appointing a specialist provider who is also working in a neighbouring authority who can bring investment as well as expertise to this service. It will mean changes for staff, a minority of whom are council staff. We will ensure that proper protections and employment practice will characterise the change when it happens at the end of the current contract with the Community Trust in the spring of next year.

On the same agenda, the board approved arrangements for the Better Care Fund locally. In practice this means the development of closer working between Adult Social Care, Primary Care and the hospital and an improvement in services which we hope will mean fewer admissions to hospital. The working together of organisations is fantastic and the openness with which the board discussed these and other items demonstrates the way we want to work and engage in the city.

Looking at the i360 

Finally then, I wanted to share with you the progress that is being made to the i360 site. You can now look through the hoardings as work gets underway to complete the i360 tower next year. Just in case this isn’t clear the money from the Public Works Loan Board and the Local Economic Partnership could not be spent on other council services. So to those who ask whether cuts could be avoided by diverting this investment, a simple answer is no.

The new hoardings at the i360 site on Kings Road

Having a peek at the i360 site

I hope you have a good weekend.

Penny