Chief Executive Blog - April 2014

Dear Colleagues,

Well, it’s hard to believe but the spring break is now upon us, the flowers are beginning to blossom and there is a definite warmth in the air. I hope that you all managed to have a break at some point over this period as it is important for us all to have regular time away from work to recharge our batteries.

My top three issues at work at the moment are on recruiting for a number of key senior management posts, continuing to work with the Area Based Review working group and progressing the Sustainable Education Review, the overall aim of which is to develop an improved educational provision and thereby pupil performance and outcomes for young people in the long term while recognising that schools also provide valuable facilities for local communities.

I attended the launch event of Positive Wiring where a group of 10 young people from S4 at Elgin High School, attired in Positive Wiring T-shirts, presented to their peers, parents and head teacher, as well as representatives from Moray Council and local social and health care agencies.

We heard that Positive Wiring was conceived out of a desire to raise awareness of research into brain development and the effects of abuse and neglect and to use that awareness to influence and develop strategies that would help break the cycle of abuse.

This innovative project was one of the original ideas submitted through the Scottish Social Services Council and Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services’ ‘Workforce of the Future’ challenge during 2012.

As always, it is refreshing to see how enthusiastic our young people are and it is great to see them involved in national research projects.

Also this month I have attended the chief executives’ adult and children public protection meeting in Aberdeen, the North of Scotland emergency planning regional response partnership meeting, also in Aberdeen, and, along with senior councillors, the CoSLA annual conference in St Andrews. The main theme for the conference was ‘Going Local’ and, given the backdrop of the forthcoming referendum, this made for a particularly interesting and relevant conference. As delegates, we were asked to consider several key issues – decentralisation and aggregation of services, participative/democratic accountability, local tax devolution and local decision-making as well as moving on to the big question – Is Scotland Set to Separate?

In the coming month I am looking forward to the next set of listening meetings where I have the opportunity to meet with service managers and discuss key issues in some detail and of course as I mentioned earlier, we will also soon be making a number of key senior management appointments and I look forward to welcoming the successful candidates on board.

Well, that’s it for the moment. I have not forgotten about my next ‘healthy challenge’ though and I will let you know in my next blog!