Tom Bracey

9th December

It’s been a while since I last posted a blog and things with Total Place (the project I`m currently working on) have moved on pretty significantly. Today the team and I – all four of us! – ran what we called an external challenge event in Bournemouth. This event was attended by a whole range of organisations including Whitehall departments, other local authorities and primary care trusts, charities and academics. The event was designed for the project team and colleagues from across Bournemouth, Dorset & Poole to offer up our work to date for critical challenge from outside the area. It was long in the planning and a lot of hard work but definitely worth it and left us all feeling positive about the work we have been conducting and ready for the next phase of our work.

The next phase of Total Place is looking pretty daunting: We have until the 5th February to complete our final reports and send them to local partners and the Treasury detailing our proposals around how we can improve services for older people at less cost across Bournemouth, Dorset & Poole. Throw the Christmas break into the pot and were more than up against it, but, all the organisations in the area have thrown their collective weight behind this project and I’m sure we will be in a position come February to detail some exciting proposals (fingers and toes crossed!).

Away from Total Place I was in Warwick a few weeks ago for our finance module. It was, as always, good to meet up with fellow trainees and the finance module was surprisingly really interesting. I say surprising as finance is not really my cup of tea. However, the module leader and the content of the module cut through the complexity of local government finance and allowed us to have an insightful three days.

I should now admit that I am writing this blog post as procrastination to help me ‘develop’ my finance essay...I was once told that procrastination and allowing your mind to rest is the key to a good essay...that’s my excuse for putting the essay off a little longer anyway!

I will wrap it up there as I’m rambling / waffling / talking rubbish. But, I will definitely update this blog quicker than last time, especially because of the increasing pressure I get from three other trainees on the scheme: Matt, Sean and David, who love picking apart my posts for their amusement!

Cheers,

Tom