It’s been another very busy week, but it’s got me thinking more about our time and diary management. I am finding myself too often running between appointments, starting late, and then occupying the full allocated time, leaving no time either for doing anything in between or even for moving between appointments and meetings. Speaking to members of Cabinet, SLT and WLT, I find that I’m not alone. Slightly disturbingly, this is often excused as the way it’s always been. Put bluntly, I’ve never done it before, and I don’t intend to start now; it’s not the sign of a professional or well-mannered organisation, and if you’re one of the people who has had to wait for me to arrive for a meeting, please accept my apologies. After a couple of months in post, I tried to reduce hour-long meetings to 45 minutes, but I found that people assumed that, if they had an hour of my time, that meant 60 minutes. Indeed, I had to persuade one person this week to walk to the exit of the building with me to persuade him that our meeting was over.
We are very busy, and this is a particularly busy time of year, but that is no excuse for poor time-keeping or diary management. For my own part, I’m reinstituting my 45 minutes for an hour’s meeting rule, and will be a little more critical in my own diary management. I would ask that you do the same and ask yourself “Is this meeting really necessary?”. I guarantee that the organisation will run better if we do.
We are proudly a Member-led authority, and I have often used this blog to extol this as a virtue. There have, in the last couple of months, been a few instances where we could have kept Members better informed of what is happening in their Divisions. I appreciate that this takes a bit more time, and sometimes Members will ask awkward questions, but it is worth it. Whatever the subject, having the local Member onside and properly informed will pay dividends, particularly if the decision is in any way controversial. As we head into a period when we will be making ever more difficult decisions, we simply can’t afford not to.
The meeting in Leek on Thursday of the Stoke and Staffordshire Council Leaders and Chief Executives moved the devolution agenda a long way forward. We now enjoy a clear political consensus across the city and county that we wish to advance simultaneously on 3 fronts: economy, skills and health. The political consensus that we have built has concentrated – I believe rightly – on the “why” and the “what”, without getting bogged down in the “how” of governance. The meeting confirmed the “why” and the outline of the “what”. Before the next meeting in mid-February, we, the council officers of county, city, borough and district, are tasked with fleshing out the “what” and getting into the “how” where required. It’s a real opportunity that we must not miss. If you’re involved in these workstreams, do please give them the time and effort that they require.