District Matters

One month in

June 2018

It has now been almost a month since I became Leader of Stratford-on-Avon District Council, although this work started before the formal election by Annual Council - the Cabinet had to be appointed, the committee membership had to be selected and lots of other routine, but important, work was undertaken.

The next step was to find out what was going on: some I knew, but a lot I didn't. When I asked for all projects to be pulled together so I had a clear picture, 12 pages listing all of the projects were produced. It is, as I discovered, easy to underestimate how much the council has to do.

The week after my formal appointment got off to a flying start with a meeting of the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership. There was a very positive welcome from the Board; however, as a result, three more meetings have been put in the diary.

Then there was an internal meeting to start work on the council's Corporate Strategy for the period 2019-2023. This is likely to be a challenging period; we know that the district is performing very well economically and one of the challenges is to maintain that momentum. We also anticipate a continuation of the squeeze on revenue from central government, so we have to exploit our current strong financial position at speed.

A meeting of the South Warwickshire Community Safety Partnership (which I chair) followed and at the end of the week I represented the council at a meeting of the West Midlands Combined Authority, which generated another meeting for the diary.

So, that was week one. I won't bore with a description of weeks two, three and four, but it's still moving at a pace.

As I mentioned above there are 12 pages of projects which need to be delivered. Working closely with the management team I'm aiming to accelerate the delivery of the key priority projects, and at a deeper level we intend to change the culture to make it a much more ‘can do' and delivery-focused council, being more proactive and responsive to a changing environment. Initial signs are that this is welcomed by people. One of my most used phrases has become: “Get on with it". I have also propped the office door open as a symbol of openness, and I am trying to create a climate where people feel free to wander in and discuss things and challenge. However, these things all take time to develop.

So, it has been extremely busy, often fraught and quite tiring, but also exciting. My aim is to ‘make a difference' and together with the Cabinet and the management team we will.

More next month.