Week beginning 18 October 

I spent much of my week thinking about brand, one way or another. There were four different aspects of my responsibilities that prompted this – and highlighted a challenge that I’ve not yet tackled.

The early part of the week was about preparations for work we’re doing to agree what needs to be completed to have finished the recovery from the cyberattack. I had picked up a bit of a theme that some colleagues had heard too much about the things we were proud of at the expense of things we knew we hadn’t done well enough. So the senior managers network was an opportunity to explain why it was reasonable to be proud and optimistic about what else our recovery enabled us to achieve but also be frank about where we’ve fallen short. Humility certainly isn’t part of my brand (even if flagellation may be) but openness in our team is a prerequisite for an effective technology service.

We’ve been exploring how we can use the report to define recovery to update residents on progress. Whether software A or software B is now recovered isn’t interesting or helpful for someone to know, but ‘can I do x?’ is simpler to answer now than previously. But it’d be even more helpful if we could personalise these so that we’re able to provide an update that’s relevant to their circumstances. As always, we’ll need to get the detail right if it’s going to build confidence in what we do. 

I heard more about the proactive, preventative work we’re doing to support vulnerable residents. It’s still in an experimental phase. We’re trying to learn about how we can use our data and our skills to have a meaningful conversation with residents to understand their circumstances and helps us work together to tackle their problems. If we could turn that into a core part of what we do it could have an extremely positive impact. And part of how we know we’ll have succeeded is if we can make it part of the promises we make to residents and their expectations of us.

In amongst all of this, the public health team led a session to consider how our services could help address health inequalities. Through the discussion we talked about trauma informed approaches, psychologically informed environments and the strengths-based approach, Make Every Contact Count. We’re also trying to embed equalities and sustainability in everything we do. It made me think about the richness of what we can achieve by working together and how fulfilling these roles can be for staff. But also the risk of significant confusion for staff. I left wondering: how can we synthesise these into some practical tools that help colleagues actively apply this whilst also remaining effective?

I was invited to participate in an event with colleagues from easyJet Holidays and the DfE about customer experience. I used the words of our Resident Liaison Group as the starting point for my theory: “don’t call us customers, we don’t have a choice”. I explained that as a local council there’s no good that comes of an experience that doesn’t meet someone’s expectations but that we should aim higher than a transactional service that ‘doesn’t make me think’, towards a citizen relationship. The subsequent conversation helped me reflect on how much more we could do to define our brand, and therefore the experience we want to offer. 

It’d be lovely to think that I could do something with all of these thoughts next week. But it’s currently feeling like a very different challenge. I’ve got 42 meetings scheduled about (roughly) 30 different things; three reports to write and then somehow to find some time to spend on things that need to happen to resolve issues and challenges that have emerged over the last couple of weeks. None of that will really matter if we beat United on Sunday. But in the meantime, it’s probably time to start making a list.