Well it’s been fairly hectic because it’s the end of the financial year and everybody, who works for public sector, knows there’s always an unholy rush to try and come in on budget. I have worked in the Civil Service for many years and it’s exactly the same sort of financial mayhem particularly as public servants don’t like spending money at the best of times because once you start spending money it puts you at risk! So nobody usually does anything for 8 months of the year and then panics to ensure the spend is on target for 31st March.

This, of course, is clear for everybody to see as they drive round because most of the roads in the country are under road works in March to ensure money is spent. Consequently trying to get anybody from the Highways Department to do anything between Jan and the end of March is usually impossible as they have already lined up all their jobs.

However, one of the nicer things about this time of year is that we are now starting to think about In Bloom and have been lucky enough to be part of an award winning entry over the last few years. We originally became involved simply because we wanted to see more flowers in the area but almost equally important, certainly for any national entries, is the community involvement. We always involve local schools with drawing competitions and planting schemes and we also try to involve other community groups such as the Neighbourhood Forum and the Rathbone Society who are based in the Quarter. Last year the Rathbone Society did some flower arranging classes and we are hoping to do the same this year with some of their displays in the Information Centre and other attractions in the area.

We have also been approached by the Jewellery Quarter Neighbourhood Forum who would like to do a Farmers Market with a proposed pilot in July. We are hoping that this can be extended to a plant market as well and Birmingham City Council Markets Department have been very supportive to the idea. Although I am advising the Neighbourhood Forum, I very much want this to be community led and we have some further ideas for entertainment etc as the proposed date links in with the Jazz Festival.

St Paul’s Square always looks a picture in the summer although last year the floral display seemed to confuse most visitors. Although it was meant to represent James Watt and Matthew Boulton’s steam engine it looked more like a space ship had landed. This year, the local community are more involved and we are hoping to have something which represents not only Matthew Boulton but also relates to things that are made in the Jewellery Quarter today. In a later blog, I hope to be mentioning a ‘Made in the Jewellery Quarter’ campaign as many famous items are still made locally. We need to give this a higher profile despite the fact that some of these are made fairly secretly under licence and will have to be handled sensitively.

Of course this year, is Matthew Boulton’s bi-centenary and he is arguably the most influential industrialist of all time. The City Council are rightly highlighting his important role and we are hoping to be involved locally, to again hopefully make it work to the benefit of local firms by highlighting the quality of their work.

Whilst the great thing about my work is being involved in delivery, as part of a large public sector organisation, (whether it’s the Civil Service or the Local Authority) I am inextricably drawn into various ‘best practice’ initiatives. I recently attended a major event on what’s called Business Transformation where we were told about all the initiatives the City Council are developing to improve delivery. Call me an old cynic but it seems to me that if everybody grafted and gave 100% and also treated their customers (who ever they were) with respect by returning phone calls we wouldn’t need any supposed ‘best practice’.

In fact, at the end of the event, I went up to one of the speakers and suggested that if she ensured that everybody in the City Council had a voicemail it would make more difference than anything else – i.e. I have lost count of the times I have phoned certain parts of the City Council (who will remain nameless!) and the phone has just rang out leading to maximum frustration. Of course the problem with voicemails is that the person who has the system set up is actually responsible for returning calls when of course they would much rather receive an email and then play email ping pong to ensure that the simplest of queries becomes a long running and complex matter. What’s happened to the days when you could phone somebody, have a sensible chat and get things sorted?!

Anyway that’s all for this months blog as the phone’s ringing.

Andy Munro