In this blog, I intend to provide an insight into a little of what I and the rest of my colleagues in County Hall do; how we are trying to make Essex a better place to live and work, how we are trying to improve the services we offer to you and how we are attempting to promote Essex locally, nationally and internationally.
Hopefully these pages will become a forum for discussion and debate around many of the issues and challenges facing our county, so I would like to encourage you to share with me your comments and opinions. For my part I will try to keep my posts interesting and informative, and I will be paying attention to what is posted.
Tuesday May 08, 2012 Today I would like to extend a warm welcome to our new chairman, Cllr Kay Twitchen OBE, who will take on the role of civic and ceremonial head of the authority.
Billericay and Burstead member Cllr Twitchen formally took over the post from Cllr Rodney Bass at full council today as she moves into her 23rd year serving on the county council. Cllr Norman Hume will be her vice-chairman.
During her career at the county council Cllr Twitchen has been involved in many aspects of council business and was awarded an OBE for services to Local Government in 2004. She served as cabinet member with responsibility for waste and environment from 2001 to 2005 when the county-wide waste management plan was established. It was the first example of partnership working with the 12 district and borough councils and Southend and
And service to the community runs in her family – Cllr Twitchen has followed in the footsteps of her grandfather who served as an
There are also some new faces in our cabinet team. Sadly, both Cllr Sarah Candy and Cllr Tracey Chapman had asked to stand down as cabinet members for their own personal reasons. Both have served on the cabinet for a number of years and I would like to thank them for the contributions they made during that time.
Their departures have given me the opportunity to review the portfolios and compare them with the workload and priorities of the council, including our new emerging role in public health. It also gives me the chance to bring in some new faces to the cabinet and I would like to welcome Cllr Ray Gooding, who has served as a deputy in children’s services for a number of years, and Cllr John Aldridge, who has recently served as chairman of the scrutiny board.
The new cabinet positions are:
It was an important full council today and we also outlined how we will seek to continue our radical programme to reshape the way we deliver our services.
We are currently focusing on modernising our practices and becoming more efficient and I am pleased to say we are on course to make £370million in savings and efficiencies as a result of this work. This exceeds the original target of £300million.
From April 2013 we will concentrate on how we can join up our services and work with our partners to reform the way they are provided to you. This should mean we can avoid expensive duplication and further develop commercial opportunities to increase the income we generate.
More details of this will be unfolding over the coming weeks and I look forward to updating you.
Peter
Wednesday April 11, 2012 I am pleased to report we have now started the launch of the next phase of our programme to improve services and efficiency with a package of enhancements to our website and award winning customer service centre - all designed to make it easier for you to access information and services.
Our essex.gov.uk homepage has a new look and feel and you can now book, report and pay for more services online, fitting in with your busy lifestyle and enabling us to deliver services more efficiently and focus resources on frontline services.
Developed largely in house, the new website design builds on the revamped website rolled out last year. This development has been extensively tested by a wide range of different people, such as pensioners, schoolchildren and those with disabilities, to ensure it is easy to use.
It has a dedicated section for all our publications - essex.gov.uk/publications - which will now all be online. Not only will this ensure you always have easy access to the most up to date information, reducing unnecessary printing will save us more than £1million over the next three years, not to mention minimising our environmental impact.
These improvements also pave the way for enhanced highways information services and a more interactive search for childcare provision. Further improvements will be made later this year to other online services including fostering, adult community learning and school admissions sections.
In the same vein, we are also relaunching our Colchester-based customer service centre. Designed to resolve a greater proportion of calls immediately by routing callers to the right person or to an appropriate automated telephone service, the new set up will improve your customer experience, as well as reducing wasted time and cost - £5.3 million a year by 2015/16.
And our customer service centre has recently been accredited by the
Peter
Thursday April 05, 2012 The weather has been a little changeable this week but I am sure, like me, you are all hoping we receive some more of that wonderful sunshine this Easter.
Spring is a lovely time to be in
And if you have some free time over the next few days why not visit our Good for Essex website and find out all you need to know about planning a magnificent street party to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee? Go to www.goodforessex.org/streetparties for more information.
Or why not put our self at the heart of the London 2012 celebrations by signing up as a volunteer in the Local Leaders scheme? You can also find out how you can be part of the Olympic celebrations in
Whatever the weather, I hope you all enjoy your Easter eggs and have a relaxing holiday.
Peter
Wednesday March 07, 2012 The latest edition of your EssexWorks e-magazine – www.essex.gov.uk/ew – is now out, packed full of the latest news and features to help you enjoy the county this spring.
Our events guide contains some brilliant suggestions for what to do in the coming weeks, with some great ideas for Mother’s Day and Easter, while, as the countdown to London 2012 continues, we have the latest on what’s happening in Essex to celebrate the magic of The Games.
Those of you who prefer something a bit quieter should check out our special feature about the Essex Book Festival which is sure to inspire you to try something new to read. There is also the chance to win a set of fabulous books from some of the featured authors.
And you can check out how we will be looking after your money in the coming year with a special report on our budget.
The magazine is free and available to all online and those of you who sign up will have up-to-the-minute news and features delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up today to make sure you don’t miss out on all that’s good about
Best wishes
Peter
Tuesday February 07, 2012 I am delighted to announce today that we are set to become the first council in the country to introduce a ground-breaking approach to improving the future of vulnerable children by helping them avoid the need for being taken into care.
Plans for a Social Impact Bond were among the measures supporting vulnerable members of the community and boosting our county’s economy announced in my budget speech this morning.
Under the bond, external investment will be gained to commission intensive family and community-based work with children at risk of being taken into care or the courts system to help them remain with their families.
This will help improve their quality of life and employment opportunities in the future. This work will strengthen families’ own capacity to cope and avoid young people having to enter care or custody.
We fully understand the difficulties people are having during this tough economic time and our package of measures agreed today means you will continue to receive value for money services and benefit from a freeze on council tax for a second successive year.
We are set to make £123million savings in 2012/13. In total, it is projected to have saved nearly £330million by March 2013 through its transformation programme and other savings.
Other measures agreed today include:
The budget we have agreed has prioritised spending on our economic infrastructure and on safeguarding our most vulnerable but it is also a budget that ensures we are ready and able to take on the challenges of the future.
Peter
Hear me talking about the budget
Monday February 06, 2012 I am pleased to take up a guest spot in this blog today to highlight the work of our fleet of gritters, which have been working non-stop over the weekend to keep the county’s roads clear and traffic flowing following the heavy snowfall on Saturday evening.
The county was poised for severe winter weather conditions and freezing temperatures with the forecast set for snow, and about 2,000 tonnes of grit was spread across the highway network from Saturday afternoon onwards.
Based on dedicated forecasts from our own weather service and readings from roadside temperatures across
Gritters were fitted with ploughs to clear snow and farmers assisted with ploughing in rural areas.
Our gritters have done a brilliant job coping with the heavy snow we have had this weekend. As a result of their tireless efforts all of the county’s main roads remain open and they are working non-stop to ensure it stays this way. I thank them for their hard work.
We have a healthy supply of grit available and are keeping our fleet of winter gritters on standby to treat the county’s road network when required, with 120 personnel on standby over a 24 hour period. But with the weather expected to remain cold this week please drive with caution and check the condition of your car before you leave.
If you can, please help by clearing your own local pavements and pathways of snow and ice – just take a careful and common sense approach. And don’t forget the vulnerable during this cold spell. For more information about this click visit here
For further advice on safe winter driving and how to clear snow effectively visit www.essex.gov.uk/winter or follow Essex Travel Twitter – www.titter.com/Essex_Travel - for latest gritting updates.
Tuesday January 24, 2012 I am pleased to tell you that earlier today we recommended a package of measures to ensure we can maintain the freeze on council tax for the second year running while continuing to deliver value for money services.
This is a much extended blog from me today but I wanted to give you all the details about this morning when our cabinet agreed to prioritise supporting the most vulnerable people in our community as well as committing to working smarter by delivering efficiency savings and improving services.
We are on course to save nearly £330 million by March 2013 through our transformation programme and other savings.
Our plans, which still need to be agreed by our full council next month, have been developed to help prepare for anticipated levels of future funding. Despite savings planned for these coming years, there is still a predicted budget shortfall of £4million in 2013/14 and £34million in 2014/15.
Benefits to
This package also included a number of budget decisions and savings including:
We also agreed a new EssexWorks corporate plan which will help underpin our policies and budget strategy over the next five years to ensure we continue to improve your quality of life.
We and the public sector in general have to face up to balancing an ever growing need for our services with an ever decreasing amount of funding to provide them.
None of the recommendations we are putting forward has been taken lightly. They are to help us remain on a solid footing now and in the face of increased financial pressures in the coming years while still ensuring we provide quality services.
We fully realise any decisions we take will have an impact on people’s lives but we believe this package will help keep this to a minimum. This is why we are recommending freezing our share of the council tax again.
It is important we continue to maintain
Peter
Wednesday January 11, 2012 I am delighted to take a guest spot this week to announce we have successfully secured a government grant to help our vulnerable residents deal with cold weather this winter.
The scheme, running until the end of this March, aims to reduce death and illness due to poor heating. It will provide advice and information on how to keep warm, provide benefit entitlement checks to reduce fuel poverty and by making energy efficiency measures where possible.
The bid for £139,250 was made following the success of the Tendring Reach Out project funded by this council and NHS North East Essex. This involved Tendring citizens’ advice bureau (CAB) knocking on doors to deliver advice in the community.
Now nine other bureaux across
This is a great initiative which really helps those in our community who need support using the simple idea of taking advice to the door. My thanks go to all citizens’ advice bureaux for their support.
Fuel poverty can result in cold and damp homes, a reduced quality of life and poor health. This can lead to higher winter death rates among older people and those suffering from heart disease or breathing problems.
In Essex fuel poverty is a particular issue in rural areas and consequently the project will focus on the north of Uttlesford and
Ann
Saturday December 31, 2011 I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and that you enjoy yourselves tonight as we ring in the New Year.
Once again, we have had a challenging year and these tough times are set to continue into 2012.
Nationally, we face a historically unprecedented period of continued public spending reductions lasting at least seven years. And with nearly three-quarters of our funding coming from central government we are sure to feel the squeeze in
But it is not all doom and gloom as we enter a new year. On a positive note, our transformation programme had already saved you £146million by April 2011 and is on track to deliver £336million in savings by the end of 2012/13.
I am also very proud we have managed to achieve these savings while largely protecting your frontline services. Our core services are also continuing to improve, with our adult social care rated as excellent,
Our resolute focus on delivering value for money and putting the customer first will not waver in 2012 and our determination to improve the way we work will continue.
Throughout the next few months, we will continue to keep you informed as we look for new and different ways of doing things, strengthen our partnerships and also investigate how we can use the capacity and expertise of our private, voluntary and community sectors in order the save money and continue to provide your front line services.
I wish you all a very happy, safe and prosperous New Year.
Peter
Friday December 23, 2011 By this time, I am sure most of you will be putting the finishing touches to your preparations for a lovely Christmas break.
I am looking forward to spending some time with my family and hope you all have plenty of opportunities to catch up with your loved ones. And, rest assured, our team of gritters will be on standby throughout the festive period to make sure any bad weather does not interfere too much with your plans.
But among all the celebrations, please spare a thought for those who are on their own this Christmas. I would urge all of you to look out for any vulnerable people in your community to ensure they stay warm and safe.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.
Peter
Wednesday December 07, 2011 The latest edition of our EssexWorks e-magazine - essex.gov.uk/ew – is now out, packed full of the latest news and features to help you enjoy the county over the festive season.
Not only can you and your families take your pick from a wonderful range of Christmas events and activities, we also have all the latest advice and information about Christmas services and timetables, including safer winter driving suggestions.
Elsewhere, we highlight the many opportunities across the county where you can make a difference to someone’s life by volunteering in your local community. And, of course, we bring you up to date on what’s been happening here at Essex County Council.
The magazine is free and available to all online and those of you who sign up will have up-to-the-minute news and features delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now and you could be the winner of a fabulous Essex Skid Pan driving session for two, a course of advanced driving lessons or an historic hotel mini-break.
To make sure you don’t miss out, subscribe to your quarterly magazine and regular newsletter updates by clicking here.
I look forward to welcoming you to our growing list of subscribers.
Best wishes
Peter
Tuesday December 06, 2011 I am delighted to report this morning we have made a major step forward in finalising our new vision for
Today our cabinet approved The EssexWorks Commitment 2012-17, recommending our full council adopt it as our new corporate vision next week.
This new vision will set out our priorities based on how we think the county will change over the coming years and how it will respond to these challenges and opportunities.
The cornerstone of this vision is: “
And we have identified five key priorities to achieve this:
Your entrepreneurialism is all the more important given the severe strain on public finances and other challenges facing us in Essex, such as our ageing population and the challenges posed by our multi-faceted county, where rich and poor, young and old, live side by side.
We expect to see money available across local government reduce by more than a quarter to 2014-15 so must recognise that while publicly funded services will continue to play a key role, the social, economic and cultural success of our towns and villages will depend more than ever on the contributions of individuals, families, businesses and local communities.
I look forward to working with you all as our vision becomes a reality.
Best wishes
Peter
Thursday November 10, 2011 In September I shared with you our encouraging news that we were well on our way in our improvement journey to secure the level of service that vulnerable
And today, I have more positive news as Ofsted has formally recognised our efforts and progress as out annual children’s services rating has improved adequate.
This follows a successful inspection of the safeguarding service in September which noted how significant improvements had been made to safeguard children.
Ofsted noted how the majority of services, settings and institutions inspected were good or better. Most provision supports children and young people well in staying safe and the large majority helps them to enjoy their learning.
Particular strengths identified include:
This is another milestone reached on our road to providing excellent services for children, young people and their families. However, the hard work does not stop here. We still have some way to go on our improvement journey and will be looking to build on success so far in the coming months.
We have evaluated the feedback from Ofsted and already put in place measures to improve the areas highlighted as needing more consideration.
I know my colleague, Cllr Stephen Castle, Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education, is delighted our teaching staff have worked so hard to drive up standards and our priorities going forward will be to ensure our schools can support every child to reach their potential and equip them with the right skills to gain future employment.
Cllr Sarah Candy
Wednesday October 05, 2011 Under our EssexWorks programme, we have been developing a new vision for
Our new EssexWorks corporate vision will set out our priorities based on how we think the county will change over the coming years and how we will respond to these challenges and opportunities.
When we first launched our EssexWorks vision in 2008, we set out an ambitious programme to ensure Essex offers the best quality of life in
But we cannot achieve our renewed vision in isolation and your feedback during this consultation will help shape our proposals into a final vision, which will form our focus from April 2012.
Initial but extensive research and consultation has already taken place to understand the views of more than 800 partners, residents, local councillors and staff.
I would urge you to find out more by visiting here. The consultation period will end on 20 November 2011, with the final vision expected to be released early in 2012.
I look forward to hearing your views.
Peter
Thursday September 15, 2011 Today I want to urge you all to sign up for your first online edition of the EssexWorks e-magazine.
Since our last printed edition in the summer, we have been reviewing the future of the printed magazine. With our budgets still under pressure, it is vitally important we balance the need to keep costs as low as possible with the need to keep you informed about how we are spending your money.
Essex County Council is currently making more than £300 million of savings by 2012/2013 – the largest savings target in local government history. We are also looking more widely at changing the way we are working, including drastically reducing the number of publications we print, bringing both financial and environmental benefits.
Therefore, we have decided to stop printing the magazine and instead move online - www.essex.gov.uk/ew - emailing this exiting new e-magazine to as many of you as possible. The new quarterly e-zine, which will save you more than £400,000 a year, will be supported by monthly newsletters and provide you with a much better service. It will be free and available to all online.
Those of you who sign up will have up-to-the-minute news and features delivered straight to your inbox, including updates on council services, features on how your money is being spent, news about and from
And if you haven’t got access to a computer, you can view it online in our libraries or ask a friend or relative to print a copy for you – it is designed to be easily printable – either individual pages or in its entirety.
The new format also ensures our stories are more up-to-date. And, as you will see, it is still packed with a wealth of stories highlighting all that’s good about
To make sure you don’t miss out, subscribe to your quarterly magazine and regular newsletter updates by clicking here. If you know anyone you think would like to receive it, please let them know.
I look forward to welcoming you as subscribers and updating you about what we are doing.
Best wishes
Peter
