Chief Executive Blog - March 2016

Dear Colleagues,

One of the privileges of my job is that I get to see where we as an organisation make a positive difference to people’s lives.

Just this month I had the pleasure of attending two events aimed at supporting Moray’s younger population. The Early Years conference set out the council’s ambition for Moray to be the best place to grow up, and our Corporate Parenting conference outlined how we and other public sector corporate parents can improve life for our young people.  

It was humbling to hear of the dramatic experiences some young people have to face, often at a very young age. The events were useful reminders of why large public sector organisations such as ourselves have a responsibility to take on a positive corporate parenting role.

Again related to young people, one of the events I most look forward to every year is the Young Citizens of Moray event. This showcases the fantastic work done by individuals and groups of our young people in Moray, with the impact of their efforts felt locally and as far afield as Africa.

I was very pleased to see the safe arrival of Syrian refugees in Moray and wish them a warm welcome along with a big thank you to everyone involved in working together to make this possible.  I am sure we all wish the newcomers well in forging their new lives within our local community.

However, as you might guess the main piece of work dominating the past few weeks for my CMT colleagues, myself and the Administration Group has been planning the council’s budget.

Whilst the 2016/17 budget has recently been agreed at a special meeting of the council the next immediate challenge is the budget for 2017/18.   Given the continued increase in demand for council services along with the recurring shortfall in funding from the Scottish Government, the amount of savings we are going to have to make in order to balance the books is significant at approximately £14 million and I’ll go on to mention some of the work we will be doing to prepare for that later.

One of the biggest challenges we face in the next few months is engaging with the community about the financial situation as well as the future of service provision in Moray.  We hope that engaging fully with the community will help as many people as possible understand the issues and have the opportunity to comment and tell us what they think.

Please remember, as employees of the council the vast majority of you also live as well as work within Moray as parents, carers and individuals and your contribution to the future of public services in Moray is just as vital.