Twice last week it was my pleasure to brief our Heads of Service (HoS) on the budget that was recently passed at Council.

Budgets are fine but unless the organisation understands the context and motivation behind them they can remain thick documents that have little impact. Key to delivery, within the County Council, are the HoS.

I was able to thank the team for all their hard work in contributing to the creation of the budget and in meeting the targets for savings set last year. Given that £50m of savings were made last year with another £43m needed this year no one can claim this is easy.

My key messages included providing dynamic leadership, giving permission to get things wrong sometimes, being less risk adverse and rising to the challenge of this new budget.

I have had great feedback on the events.