Chief Executive Blog - November 2014
Dear Colleagues,
A few weeks have passed since the independence referendum and it has been gratifying to receive a letter from Douglas Sinclair, the chairman of the Accounts Commission, via the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, congratulating each and every one of the Scottish local authorities on the way things were handled by all the council staff who were involved.
Mr Sinclair said that staff, both in the polling stations and at the local counts, had discharged their duties in an exemplary manner.
His letter continued: “The fact that there were only 16 papers which were void for want of an official mark out of a total exceeding 3,500,000 speaks volumes about the quality of the staff and indeed the quality of training provided for them, particularly so when, for many staff, this was their first experience of elections. Local government is often at the receiving end of brickbats. The referendum was an outstanding example of local government at its best.”
Having attended the Moray count, I can only endorse those sentiments. It was a long night – longer than most of us had expected – but everyone stuck admirably to the task in hand and did a great job in ensuring that everything went like clockwork.
Council business of late has seen me attend the latest meeting of the Convention of the Highlands and Islands in Inverness, where among those present were Scottish finance secretary John Swinney and fellow Cabinet secretaries Angela Constance and Richard Lochhead. These gatherings are extremely useful in terms of comparing Moray’s performance with other local authorities in the Highlands and Islands in addressing the Scottish Government agenda, and all the indications are that we are doing very well in that regard.
I particularly enjoyed my visit to Keith last week for the first of the two employee conferences which gave me the opportunity to engage with staff and chat with them about the vital role that they play, and will continue to play, in meeting the challenges which the council faces. I will also be attending the second conference in Forres at the end of this month and I am also looking forward to the staff recognition awards ceremony which, combined with the latest long-service presentations, will be held in December.
This weekend I will be attending the Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Elgin in a private capacity and I hope that all of you will be able to observe the two minutes’ silence at 11am next Tuesday in honour of those who gave their lives for their country.
Later this month I will also be in Edinburgh for the regular meeting of COSLA leaders, which will be preceded by the annual general meeting of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.
In fact the period between now and Christmas looks to be fairly busy one way or another, with a full cycle of committee meetings and the by-election in the Elgin North ward scheduled for December 12.
On a rather more doleful note, I was briefly transported back to my childhood with the announcement that Alvin Stardust had died. Those of you under the age of 50 will probably be asking: Who? He was one of the biggest names on the pop scene in the late 60s and early 70s and I was in my first year at secondary school when he had his biggest hit, My Coo Ca Choo. He was one of my pop heroes in those far-off days and we won’t see his likes again.
On an even more doleful note I took myself to Borough Briggs last weekend confident that I would see Elgin City progress to the next round of the Scottish Cup at the expense of non-league side Bo’ness United. With Elgin 3-0 up at half-time I, and the rest of the crowd, thought it was a foregone conclusion until Bo’ness fought back to draw 4-4. I would have been better staying in and playing my Alvin Stardust collection.