3.37 — weeknotes — we only went and won it — Council of the Year!!!!
Definitely a change in the weather this week with a few frosts, I actually quite like the cold and the frosts always make everything look really nice! Even better when not having to scrape the car windscreen.
Digital festival kicked off this week and what a great week. I mean it wasn’t great that my laptop decided to reboot at 0856 when the launch was at 0900 on Monday or that the Leader and Portfolio Holder couldn’t get into the meeting immediately but…. All good in the end. Was a great launch to the month and the Councillors talked passionately about the importance of Digital for our communities and colleagues. Have a look and get involved in the festival sessions.
We had a reset session on the Digital Inclusion Group on Monday afternoon — not managed to get the group together for a few months, although that hasn’t prevented some amazing work taking place. Great meeting, pulling everything together and a real drive to ensure that we have a solid action plan for 2022. A bit of work to do over the next few weeks but really important to ensure to continue to drive this forwards.
Started Tuesday with another great meeting… As part of our One Hounslow approach we have 8 levers for change — these are meant to be pushed and pulled against all our projects to ensure that we get the most out of them. We haven’t been consistent with them and so this was a chance to get a plan of developing the levers and how we continue to embed them into everything that we do. Our levers are:
- People centred — putting the residents at the heart of what we do
- Partnership by default — be that collaboration with our public sector partners, business and our community and voluntary organisations
- Straight forward decision-making — including the implementation of the constitutional review
- Clear and transparent processes — both as an organisation internally or for our residents
- Digital is how we do business — but making sure no one is excluded or left behind
- Powered by data and insight — using evidence to make decisions, shape policy and services
- Green by design — so not just delivery of our Green Strategy but thinking ‘green’ across everything we do
- Preventative — using the data to shape interventions that stop issues becoming problems
And then the BIG NEWS! I was lucky enough to attend the LGC Awards on Thursday evening, where we were up for three awards — Future Places, Team of the Year (Large) and Council of the Year. We were highly commended in the Future Places category and only went and won Council of the Year.
Such an amazing achievement and I am so proud to be part of the team at Hounslow making such a difference to the lives of our community. What an evening!
And finally — we are hiring! Perfect timing — come and work for the Council of the Year — https://hounslowdigitalcareers.jgp.co.uk/
Tune of the week: Cheesy but there we go… Kool & The Gang — Celebration (Official Music Video)
