Chief Executive Blog - September 2013
Dear Colleagues,
Hello and for those of us who have had a summer break, welcome back. If you have not yet had a break, I hope you don’t have to wait for too much longer. It’s important that we all get the chance to be away from work and recharge our batteries. However with my holidays over for just now it’s time to get back to work.
Work for me is still mainly focussing on building a vision and plan of actions for the delivery of service in Moray with the Area Based Review Working Party. This work is now being assisted by the use of an established technique not previously used in this way at Moray Council. Based on the peer review principle we have had a series of twilight sessions with senior managers whereby each section is put under scrutiny by other senior managers and the ‘owner’ of that service has to justify and explain their future plans and development. This is a new approach for us to take as a senior management team and so far it has proved valuable in identifying different perspectives and challenging rationale and thought processes.
Implementation of the changes that came with the introduction of Welfare Reform are also well underway now. This has proved to be a major challenge for many areas of service delivery throughout the Council and I have been gratified to see the way in which so many staff have risen to this challenge. None more so than during a Service Learning Visit to the Buckie Access Point where the proactive nature of the Housing Section and the benefits of positive co-location helped the more vulnerable members of the local community prepare well and adapt for the changes. This example is going to be highlighted, along with a couple of other instances, of where the commitment, hard work and good ideas of staff have flourished at the forthcoming Employee Conference, but more of that in a moment.
As part of the day to day work of the Council, I attended in the past month by video conference the Chief Executive’s Programme Board for Adult health and Social Care Integration in Aberdeen and the COSLA-SOACE monthly meetings in Edinburgh.
Looking ahead to this month, I anticipate one of the biggest challenges will be starting to bring the Area Based Review work to a conclusion for reporting in November. Something I am particularly looking forward to is the 2013 Employee Conference which is taking place on Thursday 3rd October in Elgin Town Hall. This is the fourth full Conference which has become established as a firm fixture in the calendars of the Corporate and Senior Management teams each year. It provides us with an opportunity to meet and get to know a reasonably large number of people we would otherwise struggle to meet in a year, and gives them the opportunity to speak directly with us, hear about the latest developments and future plans of the council first hand and work together on some of the key issues that affect us all.
And finally, I can report that my training for the 10k in Glasgow in October is going well. I have managed to train regularly over the summer, although it was quite hot. At this point I am anticipating that I can at least go the distance – what I am working on now is getting round in under 1 hour – if I manage that I think I’ll be doing well!