Chief Executive Blog - July 2015
Hello
I think it is fair to say that most of what we all do at Moray Council we do pretty well and we can take pride not only in the wide range of services we provide but also in how we deliver them.
But there are some areas - and more importantly the people living within those areas – whose needs we are not meeting and that is the focus of a new initiative to ensure that services are integrated in such a way that they fit together seamlessly to benefit everyone, wherever in Moray they live and work or go to school.
It has been given the working title ‘locality planning’ and is aimed at identifying communities and their residents which our services don’t reach or at least don’t fully serve. Work on this initiative is still in its early stages and is being led by corporate director Laurence Findlay who has already given a series of presentations to help set the ball rolling.
The ultimate objective is to ensure that the services we provide dovetail with each other and with services provided by others in both the public and private sectors. It is about identifying gaps in service provision which can be adjusted to take account of the requirements of people who might otherwise be disadvantaged to a greater or lesser extent.
The strong focus of the corporate management team, meanwhile, has been on the 10-year plan and the four-year plan and the team has been working with heads of service and managers to make sure that focus is shared and understood by everyone in the organisation.
The plans were only finalised in March and since then the emphasis has been on familiarisation. Ahead lies the real challenge of implementation and that is why everyone needs to be not just fully aware of the council’s priorities but also committed to achieving them.
Business over the last few weeks has taken me to Orkney with the council leader, Councillor Cree, for a meeting of the Convention of the Highlands and Islands and I am delighted to say that we will be hosting the next meeting of the Convention in Elgin in early October.
Visitors to the council have included officers from Audit Scotland as they prepare their final Best Value audit report which we are anticipating in August or September (although the oral feedback we have received is encouraging) and Phil Raines, the Scottish Government civil service lead on GIRFEC, who met with myself, Laurence Findlay and Susan Maclaren.
During the past month I have also had the pleasure of meeting staff and pupils at New Elgin primary School during the latest service learning visit; attending a screening of the James Bond classic ‘Goldfinger’ in aid of Elgin High School’s Zambia exchange programme; the extremely well attended meeting on proposals for a regional sports centre in Elgin, and a performance by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Universal Hall in Findhorn.
What was not so pleasurable, but which had to be done, was viewing countless flats in Aberdeen in the hope of finding somewhere for my son to stay before university restarts in September. The demand for student accommodation is such that prospective tenants – and their parents – actually have to form a queue to view a property. No joy so far but the search continues....