RichardS

A key priority for North Lincolnshire Council is to reduce our consumption of energy to achieve both financial and carbon footprint benefits. We are in the process of setting up a network of energy champions across all departments to support this, while at the same time encouraging staff to think about how they can help to reduce energy consumption. Every penny helps...

A development this week is the piloting from 31 August of new software on all the PCs in three large council buildings. The software will cause the PCs to switch to 'hibernate' mode if they are left idle for a given period of time. 'Hibernate' uses even less power than 'stand by' and is equivalent to shutting down your PC in terms of the power used . The monitor goes blank and the power button on your PC will be off, but the difference between 'hibernate' and shutting down a PC is that when you power your PC back on, it will return to the state you left it in. This means that any documents or applications you had open when your PC went into 'hibernate' will still be running. "Simples!"

Terry Huggins - Chief Exec at South Holland DC in Lincs and Breckland DC in Norfolk - has posted a thought provoking Blog picking up on an item by the leader of Westminster City Council. Here is the link.

http://ceobdcshdc.blogspot.com/2010/08/foundation-councils.html

My initial thoughts - do we really want business rates retained locally?

Friday the 13th might be a bit risky for a breakfast briefing, but the last of the scheduled series took place without mishap I am pleased to say! The comments offered by those present were varied and pertinent and focussed on council transformation and the regeneration of North Lincolnshire as a whole. We talked about the town centre (including the departure of M and S), the Lakes and the Pods, the likely impact of government cuts and how we might handle them, WorkSmart issues, council culture and the need for better communication within our organisation. On that note, at EMT today Simon and I talked about what might follow the breakfast briefings in the autumn. We have a  few ideas and I will post the proposals here in due course.

Just back from a really positive meeting with the Lincoln Diocese Director of Education about BSF - he was over the moon that the St Lawrence Academy scheme will be going ahead. As you may know the other Lincolnshire area councils and diocese have big decisions to make now both in NE Lincs and Lincolnshire County area as so many of their BSF projects are stopped or are for discussion. I do not envy them, and wish them well in planning new ways forward. I also had the opportunity to visit the Baths Hall site this morning - it is really coming on - if you are in Doncaster Road have a look through the fence. Excavations are well advanced and the basement is being constructed. Soon steel work will go up. The main question though ... is the crane taller that the cranes working on the Pods site? What is the height of the crane? Does anybody know? Rumour has it that certain colleagues in our communications team have been to the top to take a photo or two for the record, and that others declined the opportunity!

Some good news for Scunthorpe secondary schools yesterday. The secretary of state is allowing the BSF projects in our Wave 3 programme to go ahead unaffected. Excellent news for the 7 schools involved. Listening to Michael Gove through the wonders of the internet yesterday afternoon it was hard to disagree with some of his comments about the complicated nature of the BSF process. Our challenge now is to deliver the 7 schemes on plan and on budget - and we will, and to work with the schools in our rural areas who were hoping for Wave 7 schemes, to ensure that they can continue their transformation journey - and we will.

The series of breakfast briefings focussed on the WorkSmart programme and the council's wider transformation continued this morning at Pittwood House. As usual I am using the Blog to make a record of the key points made by colleagues present. As always corrections, further comments and new ideas are welcome via the Comment tab.

• Are staff up for all this change? Will there be consultation and engagement?
• Some teams are already working smart and have useful experiences to share about hot desking and mobile IT
• Culture change is the main challenge - team work is important - ie all team members need a similar understanding of the new work style and office culture
• Communication can get "stuck in the middle" - between CMT level managers and team leaders and members - don't assume cascade works
• Sharing facilities with health and police for example, needs to be looked at more closely
• Will home working be promoted?
• Will staff at section and team level be to talked to about the changes or just service SMTs and managers?
• This could impact on sickness absence...in a good way
• There needs to be more inhouse specialist training - using inhouse skills where we have them

So what do you think?

I've been off this site for a while. The chief reason was a few weeks off with a dose of Strep Pneumonia. It sounds a lot worse than it is/was, but it was not much fun for sure. The bike racing season is well underway now, which is also a bit of a distraction in terms of spare time. Last weekend we were at Snetterton in Norfolk where David was entered for 5 races - it turned out to be his best weekend of racing in 4 years despite one "off" (in lap 10 of a 10 lap first race, and the ensuing panic to get the bike repaired for race 2) in the remaining 4 races over the weekend he scored two 10ths a 9th and a 6th - his best ever position.

The reason for banging on about this is that two days on I am still "up" from the feel good factor at the weekend. Hard work but good fun. The effect of good things is that they can carry you through less good things for a while I find. At the moment I am trying to think through the implications for the council of the coming emergency budget and the heralded cuts to come in public expenditure. But even on that prickly topic I am still in a positive frame of mind. The realignment may well give opportunities for development. The talented team at NLC will not be out done by whatever is to come our way - I don't think I am seeing this through rose tinted post weekend specs though - we are an adaptable and capable organisation and that's a fact. As the sticker on the race bike says - "No Fear"!

Another Breakfast Briefing at Pittwood House this morning with a small group of colleagues from across the council's services. As last time we focussed on four key questions - the main conclusions being as follows.

How much do you know about the council's transformation plans?

Some of it yes - WorkSmart in particular. The transformation of North Lincolnshire the place is underplayed by NLC inside and outside the organisation - we don't promote the area enough. Even WorkSmart is not known about everywhere - not everyone gets the weekly round-up email message. Personal space is an issue and teams meeting to gel directly supports service delivery . People Magazine items have been useful. There is not enough detail coming out about how WorkSmart principles will be applied.

What does it mean to you?

Concerns about space and job requirements being overlooked - the principles of WorkSmart are OK, but it's the practicalities that need attention. Home working might be over-rated. Concerns about willingness of some people/teams to change. Management culture based on presenteeism is a problem. Culture change is a long process - will the council recognise this is a long haul?

What can you/your team do to support the programme?

Communicate information about the changes to others, and be open to it. Be clear it's not just about cost cutting. Look at service requirements and how WorkSmart principles might be applied in my area. Develop work with partner organisations along similar lines.

What should the council's senior management do/not do?

Communicate more and better! Create more feedback loops. Promote the positives about WorkSmart from the pilots and other councils. Have more briefings like this one. Work with councillors, who are often the public face of the council, to get the message out to the publc more. Be more visible to the workforce.

As always - additions/amendments/comments very welcome.

Have a good weekend - the sun is going to shine!

It's Easter. or Choc-fest as it is now known in some quarters. But not quite yet.

This week I have been involved in EMT and Cabinet Chair's meetings, several one to one meetings, had a day homeworking mainly because I had no voice (reading every word of an 82 page WorkSmart report and mastered the email backlog amongst other things) , visited a BSF school, been to Hewson House, chaired the council's IT Strategy Board at the Buttercross in Brigg (why does our cutting edge IT team meet in the heritage filled spendour of the Buttercross? A nice contrast), been involved in a WorkSmart development meeting with Turner and Townsend, been facinated by the progress of The Pods as the steel work starts to go up, and missed the office Easter Egg draw winning number by 1! I chose my son's bike racing number #49, number 48 won. Last weekend was the first bike racing weekend of the new season, 4 races over two days, 3 x 13th place and 1 x 14th from full grids of 30+ so pretty pleased all in all. The temperature and freezing wind at Croft near Darlngton (otherwise known as the frozen north) no doubt helped the bugs to dominate my mid week, but my cold is gone for the coming bank holiday - everyone else at the office has it now.

Share and share alike! Especially the chocolate. Happy Easter!

I am off to the Digital Development Group to take part in a "stocktake" of what we have achieved over the last 22 months - and to think about what we should focus on next. I imagine that the use of social networks by NLC will feature along the way, although beyond several members and an officer or two blogging, a few Twitter feeds, the development of the (coming soon) Virtual Town Hall (called "Now Then" by the way) and a Facebook page we haven't done much. Or is that a lot?

What do you think?