3.14 — weeknotes — a sad end to the week but a reminder why I work in Local Government
Nice to have a short week this week, before I had even blinked it was Thursday. A number of colleagues off this week enjoying a nice long break over Easter — so quite quiet at times this week but there was a bit more opportunity to get some stuff done this week — which was needed.
Was really nice to have a long weekend and be able to switch off for a bit. Nice to have the weather and see the garden come to life! Even had a couple of what looked liked red kites flying overhead.
Am still not getting the time and space in the diary that I need, in order to have the headspace to get the reports etc that I need to get completed. So, trying something different over the next few months and block booking whole days out to ensure that I am able to get sh!t done…
Had a really good Digital Strategy Board meeting on Thursday and was a bit of a surprise — we had a number of apologies and it was a relatively short agenda so I was expecting a shorter meeting. I was very wrong. We had a great conversation on a number of the projects but more importantly some excellent discussion and challenge on a number of strategic and cross council future developments and thinking. Really helped in moving some of them along.
Thursday afternoon we also had our Integrated Care Partnership Digital Board meeting. A range of activities taking place here across health in Hounslow. A number of projects slowly creeping forwards — a great achievement this week in getting an Information Sharing Agreement signed off that allows us to share information with and from Health colleagues that will certainly start to make a difference to people’s lives. Finally managed to get this unpicked after about a year, I am told.
There is a real focus this week as well on the next phase of the relaxing of lockdown — we have Leisure Centres and Libraries opening on Monday and the amount of work that is needed to do this is substantial, especially when some of them have been closed for many months. Easy to close buildings and not quite as easy to open them. So lots of the team focussing on this at the moment which is good. Good to get to a level of ‘normal’ again.
A long day on Thursday as I attended the Planning Committee meeting in the evening, just to ensure that Councillors and the Team were supported in the meeting. There were a large number of external speakers that we needed to ensure went well. Pleased to say in the main it went really well.
Friday morning I attended out first Recovery Delivery Board — some really interesting elements here and some really heartfelt discussions around how the organisation and partners can help the community and the Borough recover from the pandemic. There was a real focus on investment and green recovery. But for me the the conversation on helping on poverty or rather wealth creation in the borough that was amazing. Reminded me why I work in the Public Sector and a new resolve to do more directly with the community.
Just as I am finishing these up this week, the announcement has come from Buckingham Palace that Prince Philip has died. Such sad news. Whatever your view on the monarchy you can almost feel the sadness in the country, the BBC springs into action and the initial coverage has been really good.
No Tune of the week this week… A chance to reflect.
