Weeknote 2024.33

Good to spend some time with elected members last week, two mornings on interview panels, and two evening meetings, outlining my work so far to Overview and Scrutiny on Monday and proposing a portfolio of work to Cabinet on Wednesday.

Saturday

A country walk from Brentwood to West Horndon, about seven miles, largely through woodland. The North London and South Herts Ramblers move at a fair pace, so I achieved a week’s worth of “heart-points” in a single day.

Sunday

Domestic administration day. It has to be done.

Monday

A morning of interviews for our Head of Operations and Architecture role, the culmination of a lengthy process, and I was pleased we selected a fantastic candidate. I’ll share more once we complete the HR procedural work and agree a start date. In the meantime, I’ll be writing to the unsuccessful interviewees to thank them for the applications and offer feedback from the panel.

Then an evening at Overview and Scrutiny. My paper is in the public domain and you can read it here https://governance.enfield.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=115&MId=14992&Ver=4.? Allowing for a little bit of administration at the start of the meeting, I was answering questions for over an hour.

Tuesday

My first Enfield PDR with my manager, our discussion covered everything from Gartner’s Strategy on a Page to servant leadership, following their excellent PDR prompts, which I will be using for conversations with my team too.

And another excellent all-staff meeting with updates from colleagues on digital switchover, our modernisation programme, and live voting for the new name of our technology bar, which is a bit Apple Genius Bar and a bit service-desk-in-person.

Wednesday

Another morning of interviews, this time for the Head of Project Delivery and Governance, and another offer to another fantastic candidate.

Thank you to the colleagues and elected members on the interview panels this week, I know what a big hole the interviews made in your working weeks. And thank you to all the people who applied, I know you spent hours on your applications, and those invited for interview, who took time out of life to travel to Enfield to see us in person.

In the afternoon we said farewell to my manager and our Executive Director Resources, Fay Hammond who is off to the GLA. More than one person suddenly found they “had something in their eyes.”

It’s been an amazing eight months working with Fay, obviously grateful to have got the call to say I had the job, but equally if not more grateful for Fay’s leadership, support, guidance, encouragement, and most of all for trusting me to manage my service my way.

And to wrap up the day, my first Cabinet meeting in the evening. You can read my paper here: https://governance.enfield.gov.uk/ieIssueDetails.aspx?IId=66530&PlanId=0&Opt=3#AI57485

Thursday

A little glitch on the trains meant I was slightly late to our fortnightly technical meeting, which encompasses our TDA and our technical projects and interesting technical things that aren’t projects. Apart from the TDA part, it doesn’t have any specific governance function, but it keeps us all on the same page, which is worth the investment in time. With an additional ten projects approved by Cabinet yesterday we are going to have even more to talk about.

A quick break, then onto our management team for even wider ranging discussions. At the start of the month our meeting is relatively freeform, there is an agenda, and we get through it, and we talk about loads of other things too.

Our two new heads of service will increase our capacity and capability so we can lift our eyes and align the potential of technology with the ambitions of the Council, however I don’t want to lose the discussions we have and the relationships we are building across the service.

Friday

My first call of the day resolved a conundrum that’s been bothering me. An excellent start to the day. I now have a way to design our future connectivity with the broadest possible view of the market, while embracing our local knowledge, and supporting my teams.

Having presented two reports this week, I’m back in writing mode with at least another five papers required in the next month. I didn’t get many words written today; however, I did have a lot of conversations to gather the information I need.

And my last call of the day highlighted the breadth of the transformational work within the service, significant savings, lots of service improvements, and more of both in the pipeline.

Track of the week

I got in late after one of my evening meetings this week and turned on the radio just in time to catch this song, Clevor Trever by Ian Dury.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6yT7ZpfTdX4UC9tfQlklg5?si=16bae93069774909

Jobs of the week

All open to internal applicants only for now.