Weekly waffle: Katherine Kerswell
Here it is, the moment we know that many loyal readers have been waiting for – the latest missive from the desk of the council chief executive, Katherine Kerswell.
Trite, banal and patronising doesn’t cover it, but we know that students of executive management techniques look forward to our re-publishing these weekly homilies, to store away as examples of bad practice.
So to send you on your way into the Bank Holiday weekend with an extra spring of sheer joy in your step, here’s the collected wisdom from the £192,474 per year CEO – issued a day early this week (possibly because KK is making her long weekend just a bit longer):
Dear All,
What a week it has been!
On Wednesday afternoon, the Prime Minister called a general election for 4 July. This means that we are set to enter the pre-election period on Friday 31 May, following parliament being dissolved next Thursday. Colleagues from our communications and legal teams are preparing updated guidance which will be shared with you all shortly. It is certainly shaping up to be a busy summer, but seeing how everyone pulled together for the recent London elections, I’ve no doubt that we are in a good position as preparations begin for July.
On Monday, CMT [she means the ‘Corporate Management Team], directors and all heads of service got together for our monthly extended management team meeting. There were some important updates about our approach to equalities and new, improved EQIA template, as well as facilitated sessions led by division representatives, including an update on our digital transformation journey so far. The headlines from these discussions will be shared during your directorate and division team meetings.
Wednesday 22 May was Croydon’s Annual Council Meeting. Each year it sees the appointment of the chair and vice chair of council meetings for new municipal year, roles given to the civic mayor and their deputy. For 2024-25, Croydon’s new civic mayor is Cllr Kola Agboola, our first African civic mayor, and the deputy civic mayor is Cllr Richard Chatterjee.
It’s all jolly exciting: as returning officer at the General Election, Kerswell will receive generous extra pay
Executive Mayor Perry delivered his annual statement, reflecting on the last 12 months and priorities for the year ahead. He commented upon everything we are delivering, all our improvement work and continued progress to transform services. The session also included confirmation of appointments to the council’s committees and bodies and officially welcomed new members of council. The full recording of Annual Council is available on the webcasting site.
Thank you to everyone who joined this week’s Tea Break hosted by the disability staff network. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, I’ve fallen foul to this awful chest infection that is doing the rounds, but I understand that it was another rich and valuable discussion that didn’t shy away from some of the serious issues that staff with disabilities face in the workplace.
One theme that keeps coming up in our Tea Break sessions, which we need to address, is inconsistency across all our services at Croydon. I know that many of you have supportive managers who are applying the things we’ve put in place to help you, such as reasonable adjustments, but there are pockets where it isn’t and we need to make sure this is modelled right across the organisation at every level, and that our managers have the right guidance and support that they need. I have commissioned a new management development programme to be designed to do exactly that and am looking forward to sharing that with all of you.
Improving manager development is also a big part of our People and Cultural Transformation Strategy, which is why I’m pleased to say that our managers’ conference is coming back this July. Just like the staff awards, this important milestone in our calendar has been on a hiatus since the pandemic. To offer flexibility, the conference is being repeated across three sessions and it is compulsory for managers to book onto one of them – more details about the sessions will follow but for now, if you’re a manager, please look at the booking details below to secure a place and save the date in your diary.
Hopefully you’ll have seen that we have launched a volunteering pledge this week, asking staff to pledge a combined 300 hours to volunteer in Croydon and help support our communities. This is ahead of Volunteers’ Week (3 – 9 June), where we will share information about the volunteering opportunities available in the borough. At this stage you just need to commit to giving some of your time at some point this year, and you can use your volunteering hours provided by the council to help you do this. Please get involved, volunteering hold so many benefits both to the cause you support and your own wellbeing, I really hope we beat our target!
This week’s shout out goes to temporary accommodation placement officer Callum Cumpper-Edwards. A resident was in a vulnerable situation and experiencing difficulties in their current accommodation and after sending several emails to the council, they decided to come into Access Croydon and wait to see someone face-to-face. Callum took the time to see them and listened to their concerns. Alternative temporary accommodation was organised, with the resident emailing in to express how thankful she is to Callum for everything he did. Another great example of how talking to people, listening, and showing that we care can make a huge difference – well done Callum.
Have a good bank holiday weekend and as always, a big thank you to everyone who will be working to keep our services running, your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.
Katherine Kerswell (she/her)
Chief Executive
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