Manners maketh the directorate
Birmingham City Council’s head of Children’s Social Care Colin Tucker’s talks about his work improving the service.
One of the most challenging characteristics of an organisation that has struggled is the prevalence of a culture in which staff can often be ill at ease with each other.
Just reflected on this following a couple of instances of staff across the directorate being rude to each other and not really listening to what is being said.
Trying to shape a culture in which we show more mutual respect for each other and demonstrate an instinct to be supportive rather than critical is so clearly a priority; and I resolve to continue to emphasis this.
In many ways we have to find a way to talk about these issues more because it can be so easy to hide behind talking about performance indicators, procedures and therefore avoiding discussing how we behave.
The budget is looking so much better following the proposal to re-direct almost £5 million of working neighbourhood funds to offset our overspend and fund activity that does improve our neighbourhoods.
It is really heartening to see so many of our staff and managers making progress on reducing high cost expenditure and, as long as I am successful in making a bid next week for additional investment monies to fund the scrutiny report recommendations, then we might stand a chance of surviving next year without severe service reductions.
It remains really difficult to balance improvement with tight budget management but we seem to be moving in the right direction and this will build political confidence in what we are doing - well done everyone.
I am looking forward to a day off tomorrow and this too remind me of the importance of work-life balance.
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