Chief Executive Blog - January 2015
Colleagues,
Christmas and New Year may already be a fast-fading memory for many of us as we get back down to business but I hope that you enjoyed the festive break and had some quality time with family and friends.
My wife and I brought in 2015 at the Pinz ten-pin bowling alley in Elgin where our son David and the band in which he plays guitar were providing the Hogmanay entertainment. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night with a sell-out crowd who were all in good spirits – literally and figuratively.
The lead-up to the Christmas break was a busy time and included the now annual staff STAR awards combined with the long service ceremony at Elgin Town Hall. I had the privilege of presenting nine separate STAR awards to individuals and teams for their outstanding contributions to the work of the council over the past year, as well as the more traditional long service awards and certificates for long-serving members of staff.
The monthly service learning visits took me to Keith Primary School in the company of Councillors Skene and Alexander and colleague Rhona Gunn, while other appointments included meetings with local MP Angus Robertson and MSPs Richard Lochhead and Stewart Stevenson. These regular meetings with our Westminster and Holyrood representatives are extremely useful and provide the opportunity for an informal exchange of views on a wide range of issues.
This month sees a public consultation on the integration of health and social care services in Moray – far and away the biggest change in the health care sector since the NHS was founded in the late 1940s – and I would urge everyone to contribute their views. After all, health care is something that we will all come to rely on at some stage in our lives.
The next few weeks will also see the council’s budget finalised for 2015-16 while looking ahead to 2016-17 when even more challenging decisions will have to be made on how and where the council spend its ever-diminishing cash resources.
Having started on a musical note, I will end by referring to the recent passing of two of the musical giants of an earlier generation – Jack Bruce and Joe Cocker – and the worrying realisation that it is 40 years since the Sex Pistols burst on the scene and gave birth to punk rock. What might the music scene be like in another four decades? By 2055 whoever is contributing the chief executive’s blog may well be waxing nostalgically about one of today’s up-and-coming bands, Palma Violets – my pick for future stardom. Remember where you heard it first.