Chief Executive
Next to receive national recognition was
Housing Manager, Jennifer Queripel, who
was declared winner of the Chartered
Institute of Housing Scotland 2017
Excellence in Leadership Award. This is a
well deserved accolade for Jennifer and I
am delighted that she has been recognised
by the professional body.
It has also been a busy time of year for civic
events. I represented staff at the Kirkin’ of
the Council in October, which this year
was held at Tillicoultry Parish Church, and
also at the annual Remembrance Sunday
ceremony and service in Alloa. It was lovely
to see young people from our secondary
schools place wreaths at the war memorial
and to see such a good turnout of people
who wanted to pay their respects.
It’s been a successful couple of months
for Council services and staff, with awards
coming in thick and fast.
First off was the Council’s Young Parents
Project, led by Craig Baird from Strategy &
Customer Services in partnership with NHS
Forth Valley, which won a COSLA Award in
the Excellent People, Excellent Outcomes
category.
The Project is council-led and involves a
wide range of partners working together to
improve the life chances of young parents
and their children. One of the features of
the Project is the key worker approach
which takes an integrated view of service
user needs and coordinates support on
the service user’s behalf, offering a single
point of contact. This way of doing things is
highly effective and as part of the Council’s
strategic redesign options, managers are
looking at ways of adapting the principles
of that approach more widely across
services.
Also making the awards headlines was
Abercromby Primary School whose nursery
class won the Nancy Ovens Award for
Play in recognition that the school have
put children at the centre of all play and
learning experiences and have created a
rich and exciting outdoor environment.
Well done and congratulations to everyone
associated with the nursery class.
2
Grapevine
Meanwhile at the Council meeting in
November, unusually, the Council was in
receipt of a gift from a member of staff when
former Scottish football internationalist
Leanne Ross presented a signed Scotland
shirt to thank the Council for its support
during her football career. This was a lovely
gesture and Leanne also gave an inspiring
short presentation about her personal and
professional journey.
Health and safety matters continue to be
a priority and I was pleased to chair the
first meeting of a new Health & Safety
Committee involving representatives
from each service as well as trade union
representatives. The committee augments
existing forums and has a strategic and
policy remit. The first meeting had a lot
of excellent discussion and a number of
actions resulted, including some in respect
to safe driving by employees. There has also
recently been some positive joint working
with trade union representatives who have
been conducting health and safety walk-
abouts which have resulted in a range of
improvement suggestions.
In addition, along with other senior
management colleagues, I attended the
1 day IOSH Health & Safety for Executives
course, sitting the first exam I have sat for
quite some time. While I am still waiting for
the certificate to arrive, I understand that I
passed!
Perspective
As I write this piece for Grapevine, we
are launching the public consultation on
next year’s budget options. The estimated
gap based on the information currently
available is around £13m, which is the
highest gap the Council has faced.
Difficult and important decisions will be
considered in order to make sure that the
Council meets its legal requirement to set
a balanced budget and is able to deliver
those services which it is legally required
to. Over the last seven years, the Council
has made savings of around £35m which
is around 30% of its total current general
revenue budget. Given the extent of
those continuous savings over the period,
it is increasingly difficult to find savings
which will not impact on individuals and
communities.
As is the norm, to inform the process of
budget setting by councillors, Council
managers have put forward a range of
savings options which span many aspects
of current service provision, including staff
terms and conditions. Some of the options
would result in significant reductions in
service from existing levels, while others
are efficiencies or options to bring in more
income.
Details of the options are available on
CONNECT and the Council website and
I would encourage you to review these
and provide any comments you have.
Additional options are being worked on so
keep an eye on CONNECT and the Council’s
social media accounts to keep up to date.
Finally, as this is the final Grapevine of the
year, I would like to wish you all a good
Christmas break and thank you all for your
continued commitment to the Council and
Clackmannanshire.
Elaine McPherson
Chief Executive