Meeting the ICT staff council

I had breakfast with the Portfolio Management Team at a local cafe to exchange information on their customer services’ developments – which lasted for over two hours, until I thought we ought to adjourn to my office to free-up the cafe tables that we had monopolised!

I had arranged lunch with Matt Cole for our regular Microsoft SLG (Shared Learning Group) programme review, but wasn’t hungry following my breakfast fry-up. My main SLG concerns, at present, are to ensure that we follow-up on the commitments agreed with Gerri Elliott at our last Quarterly Review – to implement a federated Office Communications Server solution for all partners and to prepare a paper on suggestions for software licensing.

The OCS solution will also help us to sustain commitment and energy between meetings which, to be honest, is a continuing effort for all partners once they get back to “the ranch” and are beset with everyday operational realities.

The ICT Staff Council met after lunch. The busy agenda included feedback on the AHP (Active Health Partnership) Sickness Reporting Scheme, feedback on the last ICT Away Day (very positive, but with some complaints about noise from aircraft) communications, payroll issues, building reception arrangements, staff photographs and CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks.

We also discussed the problem of some continuing failures among ICT colleagues to take ownership of the end-to-end management of problems that are reported to them meaning that services don’t always get the joined-up service that we aspire to.

My latest idea is to switch all the Managers around for a bit – so they can both see things from their peers’ viewpoints, and share their own expertise with other specialities. After the meeting, I called Geoff (working from home) to discuss the issues; we agreed to consider over the weekend, and then agree a plan of action on Monday.