We have increased our communications even further across the organisation as of late, following on from what appears to be a long and continued battle against this worldwide pandemic for many more months to come.
The wellbeing of our communities is always at the forefront of our minds, but it’s sometimes easy to take for granted the difficulties and challenges many of our staff face to do this on a day-to-day basis, for an extended period.
Our systems have coped well with home working and our emergency response and business as usual has continued without significant interruption, but the strain in some service areas is starting to show, so it is even more important than ever that we ensure the support of our colleagues, teams and each other are kept in mind.
This has come into sharp review as we look to update our council plan. The existing priorities remain strong but they are all also now underpinned with short, medium and long-term views based on the circumstances that COVID presents to each of these priorities.
Forward planning has become more complex and urgent than many of us will have seen in our lifetimes. The continued variations to measures introduced by Government mean we have to be agile, flexible and quite often we must use our own local leadership and innovations to best implement and serve our communities.
Demand is likely to outstrip supply at some point, but planning for that is as yet an uncertain science.
What we do know is we will continue to rely on the dedication, commitment and hard work of all our colleagues across the local government and public sector as they face unprecedented times and never before encountered challenges that need solutions.
Public service is to be valued and cherished, whatever its shape or form.
I for one will be hoping that national and local solutions are near, and relationships that are under stress can be supported and repaired where needed. It is what we would wish for ourselves as part of our civic society and exactly what our communities would expect from us.
In the words of Bill and Ted: ‘Be excellent to each other’.
Lawrence Conway is chief executive of South Lakeland DC