Welcome to the May edition of Chief Executive’s e-news to staff.
Successes to celebrate.
Harold Pyle of Kenton Rapid Response team is one of four finalists for the Local Government Channel’s ‘Council Worker of the Year’ awards. The winner will be announced on 5th July.
In leisure, Amie Foster who has been a trainee for the last 18 months, has come in the top four of 200 entries in the Association of Public Sector Employees "Sport and Leisure Apprentice of the Year 2007". Alongside this, Newcastle City Council won a trophy for "Excellence in Training Standards".
In the North East School Awards 2007, Newcastle had several successes with Walbottle Village Primary winning the Environment Award and John Armstrong of Kenton Bar Primary winning the Caretaker Award.
There were also several runners up with Jo Warner of Westerhope Primary School runner up for Best Headteacher, Moira Lehman of Knowplaw Primary School and Michele O’Donnell of St Joseph’s RC Primary School runners up for Inspirational Teacher and Sir Charles Parsons Special School runner up for the Sustainable School Award.
Remember to tell Helen Watters if you’ve entered for an award or been short-listed or won so we can make sure that everyone hears your good news.
Safe Newcastle
Discussions have been ongoing with the North East Chamber of Commerce and Newcastle Business Forum to better involve the business community in the work of Safe Newcastle. At an event held earlier this month, the business community was invited to hear about the work of Safe Newcastle and given the opportunity to raise issues of interest. The event was highly successful with positive interest from the business community who were keen to work closer with Safe Newcastle to both improve the safety of their business and play their part in improving the safety of the city and its residents.
For more information on Safe Newcastle contact Adele Bradley, phone 0211 5895
Customer Service Standards.
As part of our continuing commitment to high customer service standards, we have reviewed our standards to make sure that they continue to support our efforts to improve and modernise.
A new Customer Service Charter tells the public what they can expect from us. Also a new Staff Charter, 'Delivering quality services... How we can achieve this' tells our staff what levels of service and standards of behaviour are expected of them.
All staff should be aware of this family of documents and what their responsibilities are in keeping to Newcastle City Council's standards.
Supporting People
To remind you that ‘Supporting People’, part of Social Services is facing inspection by the Audit Commission in June.
Supporting People is a commissioning and contracting programme which plans, purchases and manages housing related support to vulnerable groups across the City. We work in partnership with Probation, Health and Strategic Housing and have administered the programme, currently worth £18.8m a year, since 2003.
A multi-agency team, including housing, probation and care inspectors from the Audit Commission will carry out the inspections. The lead inspector will at times be joined by up to five other inspectors. The Commission has identified staff who they want to see and all of those people will receive individual briefings and debriefings.
I’ve every confidence that staff working on Supporting People will deal professionally with the inspection and make us once more proud of the achievements of our council.
Find out more about Supporting People
Contact Nick Whitton, Cathy Bull, Tony Metcalf or Caroline Thomas for more information.
Safeguarding Adults
Staying with Adult Services, 12 June sees the launch of the Safeguarding Adults Unit and Policy and Procedures. This work is to help protect vulnerable adults who may be at risk because of mental, physical or learning disability, age or illness, in fact any vulnerable adult who is not being treated with dignity and respect.
At the launch, we’re very lucky to have a personal visit by Dame Denise Platt, who is the Chair of the Commission for Social Care Inspection. She will be taken for lunch at the Chinese Centre by our Acting Director of Adult Services, Caroline Thomas and will be received at small event at the Civic Centre by myself and the Lord Mayor.
Local Elections
I would like to thank all members of staff who helped make sure once again that elections in the city ran smoothly. There is no change in political control of the Council, although some seats did change hands between the Liberal Democrats and Labour (who remain the only two parties represented on the Council), and some new Councillors were elected to succeed retiring members.
See the results here
Ian Stratford
Chief Executive
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