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Local Government
Rochford District Council
Rochford District Council
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For Paul’s previous interview, CLICK HERE
For Page 1 of this Interview, CLICK HERE
For Page 3 of this Interview, CLICK HERE
For Paul’s previous interview, CLICK HERE
For Page 1 of this Interview, CLICK HERE
For Page 3 of this Interview, CLICK HERE
Talking to RDC’s Chief Executive, Paul Warren, prior to his retirement (Page 2 of 3)
(12th December 2013)
Achievements
RL: You mentioned earlier you think you are a competitive person. Competitive people have a drive. What has that drive achieved? Has that been what has shaped the Council’s working?
Paul: There have been times when it’s been a combination: the political climate, the leadership, and to some extent the officer leadership shapes a council and makes it either better or worse. I would hope that people looking back on my legacy will say that the council today is leaner and fitter, does more for less in a number of areas. We also have a number of achievements to look back on over the period of time.
RL: Do particular things stand out?
Paul: Of the things that give me particular pleasure, organisationally we’ve got the Investors in People Gold which symbolises as an organisation that we must be there or thereabouts. In project terms, things that I look back on are the acquisition of the land at Cherry Orchard and the extension of the Country Park, some of the other stuff we’ve done, certainly the twenty-year leisure contract with the Leisure Centre at Rayleigh, and the stuff we’ve done around Rayleigh Windmill, and also the three town centres – Rayleigh, Hockley and Rochford.
RL: They’ve changed quite a lot.
Paul: Yes, I remember when I first came into Rochford as Director of Development, you went round the town centres and they looked particularly tired and in need of investment. You can look at the three town centres now, and the area, and there is still a lot to be done but at least they have moved on and are not standing still. On the services side we’ve gone from zero to top recycling which has been good, and we’ve done quite a lot on the arts and crafts side and on the community safety side as well, which has been particularly important. Recently on the Rochford Art Trail we won regional recognition.
Communicating with the Community
RL: I think the struggles to advertise and communicate the existence of the Art Trail reveal the difficulty of communicating with people.
Paul: I think it’s all about what I call the Heineken factor, how do you reach the parts you can’t otherwise reach and if anything it’s probably become harder because there are so many different means of communication now. You try to field a wider range of communications than you did in the old days and it can get harder to control in some senses. As for the Art Trail, it’s still a work in progress, we can get better but it’s a shame we haven’t sufficient resources to almost develop that into a permanent feature and it would be nice if we could move towards an Art Month or a particular focus around activities. All these sorts of activities bring wealth into all of our communities and even help them in their own right and make them more confident.
RL: Community is a somewhat nebulous thing isn’t it?
Paul: Well, it is interesting, that in my time at Rochford certainly, how tight and coherent a number of the communities actually are still, and how people identify with particular areas, so if you live in Rochford you identify with Rochford, if you live in Hockley you identify with Hockley Village, and if you live in Rayleigh you identify with Rayleigh. In that there are a number of strengths but there are also some weaknesses that come with it, in terms of how you scale things, and people’s movement patterns. I was talking with someone in Rayleigh recently and asked them do they go to Rochford and they said they couldn’t remember the last time they came to Rochford. People’s lives tend to be focused on where they live – and that’s quite a small area – and where they work and where their relatives are, and maybe that’s it.
RL: Is an aging population a factor in lack of mobility around the area?
Paul: There are clusters. I think you’ll find the fasting growing element of our population is the over 80’s but that is across the whole district. I think that one of the highest concentrations of the elderly are in Hullbridge but the population of the district as a whole is getting older. The 2011 census figures are still coming out but they give us a fairly accurate picture of change to the community, and how the population has grown and how the age profile is changing, and it does that on a ward by ward basis. Thus we can see where the changes are, how the population characteristics are changing and where they may be concentrations of young people or younger families, and where the elderly population is concentrated
RL: Does that get translated into practical terms?
Paul: It does. For example we have an Aging Persons Strategy which we refresh each year and whilst a number of our services are not necessarily age related in the same way that the County Council, say, has a number of carers in support services, in simple ways it works. For example we have wheelie bins and offer a ‘pull-out’ system for the aged population, therefore we have to check that to see that it is working. Do our list of pull-outs equate with the census figures? Where is our next bunch of requests likely to come from?
RL: But you’ve been holding special days haven’t you?
Paul: Yes, through groups such as the Local Strategic Partnership and the work we are trying to do with health, we have been holding specific target days with partners in various parts of the District around specific activities and facilities. We have had what we might call elderly persons’ days to actually bring to the attention of particular sectors of our community, the facilities that are out there for them, such as the one we recently did at Hullbridge. It’s part of this Heineken factor, trying to reach the parts of the community you can’t always reach. If you can reach a few people, word of mouth is a very good way of messages being conveyed across the community. I would see this working with the communities and with our other partners coming through more of these events, trying to get out there in such a way that people become better informed about what is available.
Changes
RL: We have spoken about achievements but what have been the biggest changes in your time here?
Paul: Within the organisation the biggest changes have undoubtedly been around communication technology. It has come on leaps and bounds in the way people communicate with us. I’m old enough to remember how the main means of communication with us was by telephone or letter. Those days are long gone and I suppose one of the challenges for organisations, particularly public organisations, is actually how you deal with the demands and expectations around that, how you keep the various channels going and deal with them? That would be a key change internally.
RL: I presume financial changes would be another?
Paul: Yes, another change would be in the last three or four years dealing with the declining grant base, as Central Government have cut our grant drastically. At one point we had a £5.2M grant and we’re now down to £2.6M and it’s getting smaller. This raises questions of provision. That’s making us do more and more work questioning do we need to provide these services, do we need to provide them at that level and at that quality? Are there things we can stop doing or are there things we can do in a different way? I have to say we have been quite successful up to now in reshaping a number of things we do without it actually impacting adversely on the public.
RL: As an aside for the moment, has your planning department cut back at all, because I notice you have just sold off the end building that was planning, or have you simply relocated them?
Paul: They have been relocated and have come into this complex. There were a series of changes which actually started a number of years ago when, I think it was back in 2007, we managed the housing stock. We then transferred that housing stock to a Housing Association which is Rochford Housing Association are located over in Rumsey House in Locks Hill, and over a period of time, particularly as we have developed our technology, it has enabled us to look at how we work and have been able to bring the Planning Department down into this office complex. We auctioned the building and the money will now come into our capital side. Nonetheless all income is gratefully received and can be offset against other things. Our asset base over a number of years tends to be the things we are in and we haven’t got a lot of surplus assets as such. We have quite a few parks, open spaces and woodlands, but other than that we have this complex and the Civic Suite at Rayleigh and our Depot, and that’s basically it, but we’ll continue to look and see how we use all our buildings and if we can, change the way we work. For example we have people who work from home as from the office. Some processes can benefit from that, for others it doesn’t work so well. With some jobs people are outside and so are out of the office most of the day and so we question do we need that amount of office space, given that 60% of that team are out most of the day?
RL: You mentioned earlier you think you are a competitive person. Competitive people have a drive. What has that drive achieved? Has that been what has shaped the Council’s working?
Paul: There have been times when it’s been a combination: the political climate, the leadership, and to some extent the officer leadership shapes a council and makes it either better or worse. I would hope that people looking back on my legacy will say that the council today is leaner and fitter, does more for less in a number of areas. We also have a number of achievements to look back on over the period of time.
RL: Do particular things stand out?
Paul: Of the things that give me particular pleasure, organisationally we’ve got the Investors in People Gold which symbolises as an organisation that we must be there or thereabouts. In project terms, things that I look back on are the acquisition of the land at Cherry Orchard and the extension of the Country Park, some of the other stuff we’ve done, certainly the twenty-
RL: They’ve changed quite a lot.
Paul: Yes, I remember when I first came into Rochford as Director of Development, you went round the town centres and they looked particularly tired and in need of investment. You can look at the three town centres now, and the area, and there is still a lot to be done but at least they have moved on and are not standing still. On the services side we’ve gone from zero to top recycling which has been good, and we’ve done quite a lot on the arts and crafts side and on the community safety side as well, which has been particularly important. Recently on the Rochford Art Trail we won regional recognition.
Communicating with the Community
RL: I think the struggles to advertise and communicate the existence of the Art Trail reveal the difficulty of communicating with people.
Paul: I think it’s all about what I call the Heineken factor, how do you reach the parts you can’t otherwise reach and if anything it’s probably become harder because there are so many different means of communication now. You try to field a wider range of communications than you did in the old days and it can get harder to control in some senses. As for the Art Trail, it’s still a work in progress, we can get better but it’s a shame we haven’t sufficient resources to almost develop that into a permanent feature and it would be nice if we could move towards an Art Month or a particular focus around activities. All these sorts of activities bring wealth into all of our communities and even help them in their own right and make them more confident.
RL: Community is a somewhat nebulous thing isn’t it?
Paul: Well, it is interesting, that in my time at Rochford certainly, how tight and coherent a number of the communities actually are still, and how people identify with particular areas, so if you live in Rochford you identify with Rochford, if you live in Hockley you identify with Hockley Village, and if you live in Rayleigh you identify with Rayleigh. In that there are a number of strengths but there are also some weaknesses that come with it, in terms of how you scale things, and people’s movement patterns. I was talking with someone in Rayleigh recently and asked them do they go to Rochford and they said they couldn’t remember the last time they came to Rochford. People’s lives tend to be focused on where they live – and that’s quite a small area – and where they work and where their relatives are, and maybe that’s it.
RL: Is an aging population a factor in lack of mobility around the area?
Paul: There are clusters. I think you’ll find the fasting growing element of our population is the over 80’s but that is across the whole district. I think that one of the highest concentrations of the elderly are in Hullbridge but the population of the district as a whole is getting older. The 2011 census figures are still coming out but they give us a fairly accurate picture of change to the community, and how the population has grown and how the age profile is changing, and it does that on a ward by ward basis. Thus we can see where the changes are, how the population characteristics are changing and where they may be concentrations of young people or younger families, and where the elderly population is concentrated
RL: Does that get translated into practical terms?
Paul: It does. For example we have an Aging Persons Strategy which we refresh each year and whilst a number of our services are not necessarily age related in the same way that the County Council, say, has a number of carers in support services, in simple ways it works. For example we have wheelie bins and offer a ‘pull-
RL: But you’ve been holding special days haven’t you?
Paul: Yes, through groups such as the Local Strategic Partnership and the work we are trying to do with health, we have been holding specific target days with partners in various parts of the District around specific activities and facilities. We have had what we might call elderly persons’ days to actually bring to the attention of particular sectors of our community, the facilities that are out there for them, such as the one we recently did at Hullbridge. It’s part of this Heineken factor, trying to reach the parts of the community you can’t always reach. If you can reach a few people, word of mouth is a very good way of messages being conveyed across the community. I would see this working with the communities and with our other partners coming through more of these events, trying to get out there in such a way that people become better informed about what is available.
Changes
RL: We have spoken about achievements but what have been the biggest changes in your time here?
Paul: Within the organisation the biggest changes have undoubtedly been around communication technology. It has come on leaps and bounds in the way people communicate with us. I’m old enough to remember how the main means of communication with us was by telephone or letter. Those days are long gone and I suppose one of the challenges for organisations, particularly public organisations, is actually how you deal with the demands and expectations around that, how you keep the various channels going and deal with them? That would be a key change internally.
RL: I presume financial changes would be another?
Paul: Yes, another change would be in the last three or four years dealing with the declining grant base, as Central Government have cut our grant drastically. At one point we had a £5.2M grant and we’re now down to £2.6M and it’s getting smaller. This raises questions of provision. That’s making us do more and more work questioning do we need to provide these services, do we need to provide them at that level and at that quality? Are there things we can stop doing or are there things we can do in a different way? I have to say we have been quite successful up to now in reshaping a number of things we do without it actually impacting adversely on the public.
RL: As an aside for the moment, has your planning department cut back at all, because I notice you have just sold off the end building that was planning, or have you simply relocated them?
Paul: They have been relocated and have come into this complex. There were a series of changes which actually started a number of years ago when, I think it was back in 2007, we managed the housing stock. We then transferred that housing stock to a Housing Association which is Rochford Housing Association are located over in Rumsey House in Locks Hill, and over a period of time, particularly as we have developed our technology, it has enabled us to look at how we work and have been able to bring the Planning Department down into this office complex. We auctioned the building and the money will now come into our capital side. Nonetheless all income is gratefully received and can be offset against other things. Our asset base over a number of years tends to be the things we are in and we haven’t got a lot of surplus assets as such. We have quite a few parks, open spaces and woodlands, but other than that we have this complex and the Civic Suite at Rayleigh and our Depot, and that’s basically it, but we’ll continue to look and see how we use all our buildings and if we can, change the way we work. For example we have people who work from home as from the office. Some processes can benefit from that, for others it doesn’t work so well. With some jobs people are outside and so are out of the office most of the day and so we question do we need that amount of office space, given that 60% of that team are out most of the day?
