Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is recruiting for a new city director

The lead officer role requires a proud, passionate and hard-working individual who will get to join an exciting and fast-paced organisation.

Here Councillor Abi Brown - Leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council gives a flavour of her working day and what it’s like working in the city.

My day starts quite early with a brisk dog walk. I enjoy the peace and quiet of 7am before the school run. While it’s not always easy, I think it’s important to have the right work/life balance and I endorse that with all teams who work for the city council, no matter where they are based or what role they do. I get to my office in Stoke town centre about 8.30am and catch up on mentions of the city council in the news with a daily update that’s circulated by our communications team. Great strategic comms is vital both internally and externally, and I take a keen interest in ensuring our key messages are getting out to communities, businesses and partners. I’m very active on a number of social platforms and throughout the day will use these platforms to debate, discuss and understand key news that may impact on local government and Stoke-on-Trent. They’re really important channels for me to directly advocate about this city and how much transformation is under way here - favourite hashtag #Stokeisontheup!

Today’s media update includes a round-up of BBC ‘We are Stoke-on-Trent’ coverage where local, regional and national news outlets came to produce a week-long series of programming from the city. We worked hard to link with media outlets and tell the positive stories here. It’s good to see that this was mainly achieved particularly as we regularly have to challenge oft-used but untrue negative perceptions of Stoke-on-Trent in the media.

Next up, I have a speaking commitment with the Association for Public Sector Excellence who are delivering a seminar in the city for around 100 delegates on building maintenance. I’ve been asked to provide a welcome, including reference to Unitas – our building maintenance and repair services which we set up to carry out repairs and maintenance for more than 18,000 homes and 600 public buildings across the city. It was established as part of a drive to improve services for tenants and raise housing standards in Stoke-on-Trent. The company has a turnover of £45 million, employing 450 staff and spends £17 million via its local supply chain, providing a real boost to the local economy. The event is being held at the Moathouse hotel in Hanley which is shortly due to become a Hilton Double Tree hotel. It will become one of two Hiltons in Stoke-on-Trent with the first due to open in spring 2020. It is part of an exciting council investment that will also see Clayworks, flagship private rental accommodation, built for the first time in the city centre with public sector funding.

I make it back to the civic centre in Stoke for a staff briefing with Eleanor Brazil, the children’s commissioner who has been appointed to consider what happens next following our children’s services inspection by Ofsted in February.

Improving children’s services in Stoke-on-Trent is our number one priority. Our children in care numbers have risen far faster than other statistical neighbours and against national figures and we have 890 children in care. The role of corporate parent is really important to me, and I try to link our responsibility for those children into everything we do.

It is very positive to see the session full with loyal and dedicated staff. Collectively there is a consensus around what we need to do next to meet the scale of the challenge.

Next up - I am board member for Fortior Homes, the city council’s wholly-owned housing company. Our growth strategy of bringing more jobs, businesses and homes to the city is central to ensuring we can provide the services residents need. Fortior is developing brownfield land as well as providing quality housing for sale and rent. It’s inspiring to see this happening and know that all returns delivered are returned to the council to invest into essential services.

Following this, there is just enough time to catch up on my emails and have a quick chat to my PA in between meetings. I’m working hard at being paperless, and it’s good to see progress on the digital agenda with more people downloading our council app than ever before. It covers a range of services and I find it indispensable for reporting casework on the go!

Stoke-on-Trent is a polycentric city with six towns that make up the city, and we aim to work to each town’s strengths. There’s always lots going on, and I try to spend as much time as I can out and about meeting people, visiting services and promoting what we do. We are currently working on a series of heritage projects across the towns – this will see our historic buildings returned to their former glory and being used by communities, as centres for services or in commercial opportunities.

Next I’m into a meeting about the budget – we’re a half a billion pound organisation that has 5,000 staff providing over 700 services. With our funding decreasing centrally by 68 per cent and the need to redirect over £5 million investment into improving our children’s services, we’ve had to look at savings proposals across the organisation with no stone left unturned. It’s sadly meant that we are proposing job losses. This is never something that any leader wants to do and my heart goes out to the people affected. Unfortunately it’s essential so that we can make the necessary investment into children’s services and ensure a balanced budget for the year – something that we like all other local authorities have to do.

Finally, at the end of the day it’s over to meet with colleagues ahead of the Ceramic Valley Enterprise Zone Project Board with Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy colleagues next week. It’s one of the projects I’m most proud of – several brownfield sites, many of which have remained derelict for years, have been regenerated as part of one of the most successful enterprise zones in the country. To date it has created 895 jobs with 2000 jobs secured, 17 new occupiers (with occupation rate of over 73 per cent), 519,655 square foot of industrial space completed with over £160m of private and public sector investment.

I love the variety of being Leader - for me, it’s the best job in the world. We have a great team of officers who work so hard every day to ensure we are delivering for the residents of Stoke-on-Trent, and I know they feel as passionately about the city as I do. No two days are alike, and the opportunities that are coming forward at the moment are transformational. I think Stoke-on-Trent is one of the most exciting cities in the country, and it is an honour and privilege to serve our residents.

If you have read the above and think you are the right person to help continue the transformation of Stoke-on-Trent, apply now. Closing date is 13 October.