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

Safe and secure

The sun shone this morning reminding me that all week we’ve had a dull, cold February without much sun and so here's a picture of this morning’s brightness.

A glimpse of sunshine

Visiting the Brighton Centre

The last time I recall seeing the sun was at the weekend and particularly on Friday afternoon when I visited the Brighton Centre and met with Ian Hardy and Howard Barden. We reviewed how we are working together on plans for the seafront, including exciting waterfront developments that will eventually see a new conference centre and arena down at Black Rock. It was a delight to meet members of the management team to look around the building and to see a conference gathering momentum while I was there.  Keeping the business flourishing through this time of planning and change is at the forefront of Howard and Ian’s minds and keeping the building safe and secure is one of the constant challenges to the whole team, and they do it very well.  

Howard, Carrie, Colin, me, Rebecca, Michael, Ian

Being vigilant

Keeping our buildings, staff and citizens safe and secure has been a theme of this week and I have reminded everybody to be vigilant, recognising the heightened security threat level announced by the government recently, particularly in respect of police and our Jewish community. But the message of being safe and secure and remaining vigilant is equally one for all of us; so simple things such as always wearing our council ID, not allowing people to tailgate when we come through secure entrances and following our intuition if we have concerns, are all important things to do.

All talk and no vote

Running a fair and open election process is also on my mind and this week I met with my deputy returning officers to particularly focus on the workforce plan for the elections.  We have also started a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of registering to vote 'All talk and no vote'. I am really keen that the hard won vote is something that should be exercised by all eligible citizens and, of course, registration is essential to allow that to happen. So far the campaign does seems to be having an impact and citizens are busy adding their names to the electoral register.

One of our adverts on the side of a bus

Meeting our unions

On Tuesday I met with the branch secretaries for GMB (Mark) and Unison (Alex), at their request, to review the state of our industrial relations. From my perspective it’s important that we keep open channels for communication and maintain a respectful relationship that allows us to discuss and agree over differences. Despite a number of individual issues at the moment, ours was an open and good natured meeting. It’s important to me that we have a well led organisation with good industrial relations characterised by openness and respect and, ultimately, a commitment to working together.

Me with Mark and Alex

Redefining how we work

Over the coming months and years, how the council, communities and citizens work together will need to be redefined.  We will have to learn how to enable volunteers to have more autonomy in supporting their communities. One of many examples of this is happening already is in Hollingdean where some active citizens want to be able to open the Children’s Centre as a community building at weekends. I met with Valerie Foucher and Yvonne Rivers to review how this work is going with Steve Barton, head of service, Sam Warren, city neighbourhood co-ordinator and Richard Tuset, head of policy and communities. The news was encouraging and we had a really stimulating discussion about a collaborative agreement with citizens being at the heart of new ways of working. 

Richard, Sam, Steve, Valerie and Yvonne

Restoring Saltdean Lido

Another example of collaborative working was the meeting with the community interest company for Saltdean Lido fronted by its chair, Rebecca Crook, and Bridget Fishleigh. Local citizens have formed a Community Interest Company (CIC) and successfully bid to restore and run the magnificent Saltdean Lido. It’s clear that the council was not in a position to ensure such an outcome for Saltdean Lido without collaborative working. The CIC has taken on the challenge of securing a safe future for a wonderful building and a fabulous leisure offer for an important part of our city, namely Saltdean. We wish them well. 

Rebecca and Bridget

From the Lido archives

Providing employment

Many of us want to see Able and Willing become a flourishing business for many years to come. It provides employment for learning disabled adults and makes and sells important promotional and embroidered products. It is clear that this will need some continued support from us but it also needs a business plan that can support commercial independence. We held a meeting this week with two members of the business community who want to assist with advice and support. We agreed that they should join our monthly meeting and help it become a Support and Challenge board with the aim of Able and Willing becoming a viable business. I am grateful to them for volunteering to bring their expertise and commitment. We see this business as playing an important part in our strategy for people with a learning disability and achieving their aspirations to be able to live, work and play independently.

Geoff White, Able and Willing business manager

Being safe and secure means adapting to circumstances, taking new opportunities, seeing and mitigating new threats. Look out for yourselves and one another and I hope we see a bit of that sun that peaked out this morning over the weekend.

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