Update from Mark Wynn Interim Chief Executive Mark Wynn 3 December 2024
Hello,
I wanted to start by saying thank you to everyone who has been working in the recent cold weather. I know that winter brings pressure to many of our services. Whether you were out in the cold keeping our roads safe, helping our residents, or supporting from behind the scenes, thank you.
Looking forward
As we look ahead, there are many exciting developments on the horizon, including our ongoing work on the devolution deal, which promises to bring more powers and resources to our local communities. You may have seen that the next stage in our devolution journey, a formal legal document known as a Statutory Instrument, was presented in Parliament. This document is necessary to legally establish the new body. Once Parliament approves this Statutory Instrument, it will provide the legal framework needed for the CCA to be officially formed and begin its operations in early 2025.
This month will also see us receive the provisional local government finance settlement. This is where government outlines the proposed funding allocations for local authorities for the upcoming financial year.
We are also expecting a white paper on devolution from government before Christmas setting out how it sees the role of Local Government working in the future within the devolution arena. We will keep you updated as and when we hear anything.
Update on Executive Leadership Team
You may already know that Louise Taylor will be leaving us this month, and Elaina Quesada will be leaving in the New Year. I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing both Louise and Elaina all the best for the future.
Turning to new appointments, Helen Coombes has joined us as the Interim Executive Director of Adult Services. Helen started with us on Monday 2 December, and will work three days a week until January, when she transitions to full-time. This arrangement will allow for a smooth handover. Helen has recently finished her role as the Interim Executive Director of Adults, Wellbeing, and Health Partnerships at Surrey County Council. I hope she receives the same warm welcome from everyone that I did when I first arrived in Lancashire.
SEND Inspection
On Monday 25 November 2024, we received notification that we will be subject to an inspection of our local area SEND partnership.
Inspectors will evaluate the impact of the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements on the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND.
Inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will carry out the inspection and are expected to be with us for around 3 weeks, joining us on-site from 9 December 2024.
I know how committed our teams are to providing high-quality SEND services, and how hard they have been working to ensure we are fully prepared for when inspectors arrive.
If you have any questions or need some support during the inspection period, please get in touch at CYPInspections@lancashire.gov.uk.
Employee conferences
I wanted to thank everyone who came to the employee conferences. It was great to see so many of you. We recorded the conference held at County Hall. If you would like to watch it here is the link to the first part of the conference with presentations from myself and from representatives from directorates: https://youtu.be/mUH_n0SJTLQ If you would like to watch the question and answer session you can watch that here: https://youtu.be/1tky_3iDkLc.
There is also a summary of the presentations available on the staff area of our website, for managers that wish to brief their teams. There is also a PDF version for people to print and share with staff who have no access to our network.
Some of the themes of questions included devolution, Leading Lancashire framework, how we manage change across the organisation, updates on some of our economic development projects such as Eden and suggestions on budget savings.
It was really helpful to not only outline what is happening across our organisation but to listen to feedback and ideas that you suggested. I will be taking away some of these and working with the relevant departments to see if we can move these forward. I will keep you updated. If you haven't already please take five minutes to provide some feedback using this form: Employee Conference feedback form.
Looking back at 2024 and feeling Proud
We have once again opened our Yearbook for you to record key achievements and to thank people that you have worked with over the past 12 months. This is the second year we're doing this, and we've created a 2024 Yearbook webpage where you can share key accomplishments made by you or your colleagues throughout the year and say thank you. I hope you'll take a moment to reflect on what you're proud of and add it to the site, or simply take some time to see what others have shared. The site is also accessible to staff who don't have intranet access. It is available on the staff area of our website: www.lancashire.gov.uk/staff.
For those who missed the Lancashire Day video, we asked for clips from people explaining why they are proud to work for Lancashire County Council. If you didn't get a chance to see the video, watch the Proud to be part of Team Lancashire video here.
Thank you to everyone who took time to film themselves, it is such a great piece of work.
Well done
I thought it would be good to end with a massive well done to our Music Service, who won two national awards for their Digital Strategy and SEND library at the Music Mark, the UK Association of Music Education's Annual Conference. They picked up the Talk into Action Inclusion Award and Digital Project of the Year for their development and creation of an accessible instrument and music technology library – the first of its kind. The library includes ten specialist instruments designed to engage pupils of all abilities, including non-verbal students and those with limited movement. Teaching templates and videos for each resource are freely available online, allowing Specialist Schools to try out these cutting-edge tools before making any purchases, with plans to extend this to mainstream schools.
These awards are a testament to the hard work and creativity of our Music Service. Congratulations to everyone involved in these projects and thank you for your continued dedication to making music education accessible and inclusive for all. It is great to see Lancashire once again leading the way on innovative projects.
I also wanted to give a shout out to our Road Safety Team, who completed the Brake 5 Challenge, a fundraiser for the road safety charity Brake 5. They cycled the Guild Wheel in sub-zero temperatures. Nine riders clocked up a collective 189 miles and raised over £1,751 for the charity.
Have a great week everyone.
Mark