Essex County Council

I don't know how many people in the room today are from the public sector, but a good number of our listeners, particularly in the UK, of course, are.

And one of the things that was talked about as one of the... biggest areas of encouragement and why we need to embrace these new regulations was because of things around innovative solution offerings and again of course sustainability and it is very much going hand in hand and we're seeing this right now what we flew in terms of as we're researching notices that are being put out by public sector organizations they are looking for pretty robust and and stringent and throughout the life of the contract targets and objectives around sustainability you know um We often joke about this, but Fleur used to work for Essex County Council.

We can't go a single episode without talking about your 19 years at Essex County Council.

Huge local authority, a lot of procurement resource, but I know for the longest time when you were there, Fleur, you were very proactive as a public sector procuring organisation around sustainability, in addition to things like...

Yeah, and supply relationship management and everything like that.

And then two people have resigned from reform today, overnight.

The leader, Sam Journey of Essex County Council stepped down.

He's a wrong in a million different levels.

He's going to end up in Tlingit, that lad.

Started

out a career in Essex County Council where the streets are paved with gold and they are plentiful in terms of purchasing resource.

But for many, for most organisations, at least in the public sector, it was award bang on to the next one.

There was no kind of opportunity to...

We're building our first, we just bought a building from the NHS down in Essex.

We're working with Essex County Council to build our first high needs children's home.

And then we already deliver the supported accommodation piece to providers across a number of counties.

So that piece is kind of already underway.

funded, so I've only got a few places left on that.

But that's Colby, the Colchester business... venue they have got the funding done so what happened was I gave a pilot session a few months ago the feedback was so amazing they wanted me to do another one the feedback was so amazing that they've put me into their bid for funding from Essex County Council so I love that I love amazing valued it so much and the feedback was so good that they put me into their funding that's really touching I've forgotten to tell people I also have a link tree which is link tree brain bars so they should be able to find me on that as well but we'll put it in the show notes won't we

yes absolutely i'll definitely do that and um yeah we just got two minutes left now then so um so don't don't be struggling people you know if this is resonating with you those are our listeners here that um i know it really i feel it resonates you know with my decision making i'd like to find out so do do the questionnaire and find out where it's at because you it can make such a difference.

And if you've got a business, it might be millions of pounds or hundreds of thousands, who knows, or might be with yourself so that you know that you make satisfactory decisions.

I was sent to a public boarding school.

That's a boarding school, when I was 11, um, uh, that provides for the children of people who are coming from, in quotes, "dysfunctional families" or their families are Army or Navy or Air Force based and moving around a lot, and the kids need to have, uh, continuity of education, and this was a boarding school run by, funded by, um, Essex County Council.

It was called Kennylands, and we were based in Sonning Common.

Anyway, how did I get to be a boater? Well, towards the end of my life, um, as a worker and as a parent and as a grandparent, um, I had to think about how I was gonna sustain myself going forward, and I didn't wanna give up.

So it's a joining of great minds, if you could put it that way, which is the Oasis Trust, which previously ran 56 schools, as well as running enormous numbers of other programs such as owning housing, running large anti-trafficking organization, working in health working in youth work so a very large organization and big education so the two organizations came together on the first and we're now the oasis big education institute and the purpose of that institute is to really support schools and again listen and do what's said is needed there's now 59 schools but also support the education sector and So what is it that people are saying they need to be the best they can for their children, young people and families and their staff? So the Big AI Project came from big education as it was then and in particular the Rethinking School Program.

So the Rethinking School Program is a national program where schools work intensively for two years on something that they are passionate about that they wish to change and they learn both about the science and the research behind significant changes fundamental transformation but also then focus in on the specific areas within their school that they would like to start again with or make a radical change to or look at from a different way a different perspective so where they feel like there's something that they need to give significant thought and care to and research so the rethinking school program was where the big ai project is uh is born um and the my future program is currently um funded and run by Essex County Council across Essex.

And we've just launched our first London pilot.

So that's where the two projects currently sit.

Well, I think I've got to refer to my other role and that's as a bikeability instructor, teaching the young children how to ride safely on the roads.

I've also, I mainly work for Essex County Council doing bikeability, but you and I met because I was also doing some work for Hertfordshire.

So yes, all of my fellow bikeability instructors are going to the schools regularly, week in, week out, rain, snow, hail, sunshine, heat, whatever, and take the children out to teach them road safety, to keep them safe on the road and give them skills for life, basically.

I can't think of a better people, apart from the teachers.

And they just, they wouldn't do it.

And in the end, Essex County Council stepped in and did it, but they don't have the jurisdiction over it.

And eventually, because they stepped in, their safeguarding officer said, um, "You do need to have a, um, ID verification on that door." And they took the headphones down.

They got, they'd already moved the, the butthole image.

It wasn't sexy, but it worked, and that's what this does.

It's, it's boring, [chuckles] really boring work to do it and get them on a technicality.

Like with the first site, for example, the legal AI recommended that I do a Freedom of Information request to both Colchester and Essex County Council about how they handled this because Colchester did a press release saying that Essex had taken care of it and it was all fine, yet the Freedom of Information request shows that neither council spoke to each other.

So how did they know? Why did they do a press release saying Essex had taken care of it when both Freedom of Information requests prove that neither spoke to each other, which means the only way they knew it'd been taken care of was via First Site, which are the people that were the ones that shouldn't have been doing this in the first place.