Chief Executive Blog - May 2014

Hello everyone,

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather that the Easter weekend brought and which will hopefully continue throughout the summer, although that might be wishful thinking!

In addition to working on the four-year and 10-year plans, the last month has seen me continuing to work with the Area Based Review working group and being involved in the final stages of two key appointments.

Final interviews for the post of corporate director of environmental services take place on May 12 and for the post of head of housing and property on May 15.

Also next week I will be facilitating a meeting on Grant Lodge to which individuals and groups with an interest in the future of the building have been invited.

The past month has seen members of the corporate management team given a guided tour of the River Findhorn and Pilmuir flood alleviation scheme at Forres where work is on schedule to be completed next spring.

It is a major project which will protect hundreds of homes and businesses from flooding and it was extremely interesting to be given an insight into how the scheme will work.

As most of you will know it is part of the biggest package of floods scheme ever undertaken in Scotland and will help give residents and business owners in Moray a higher degree of protection from flooding than most other parts of the country.

I also had the pleasure of attending a ‘meet-the-buyer’ event at Moray College which was staged by the council’s procurement section.

The target audience was companies and organisations interested in doing business with the council, which awards contracts – big, medium and small – worth £100million every year.

I, and everyone involved in organising the event, was delighted with the response, with more than 300 people attending during the four-hour event.

Let’s hope that local businesses take the opportunity to seize a slice of the action.

Lastly, as promised, I have another healthy challenge – again in the form of a run, although this time it is as part of a 10-person team made up of colleagues from various sections within corporate services.

We are taking part in the Moray Way Relay, organised by Walk, Jog, Run Moray, and along with other teams on Sunday, June 15 we will be walking, jogging and running our way around the boundary of Moray. I will let know next time how my training is going.