This week I’m going to take a look back over the last 12 months. Think of it as a Big Christmas Cracker, showcasing many of our achievements this Year. Next week our attentions turn to Christmas as minds turn to mince pies, mulled wine and all the other festive treats we’ll share together whilst remembering the true meaning of Christmas.
It’s been another year of hard work in Children’s Services. We needed to improve and it has been the driving priority for the Council for the last few years. Political leadership, senior managers and frontline staff have been united behind this goal, and I want to thank everyone for the commitment they have demonstrated. We came to the end of our regular Ofsted monitoring visits and welcomed inspectors for a comprehensive look at our services last month. We’ll share news when we can in the New Year.
Even though it only happened last week, I also want to quickly mention the SEND awards again. It was such a brilliant evening and I’m so proud we were able to help SPCV make it a reality.
After three intense days and a huge amount of preparation, Adult Social Care’s CQC (Care Quality Commission) inspection finished in November. It’s the first time this has happened in 15 years since the previous local authority inspection regime ended. While we await the outcome (anticipated in the spring), I would like to thank everyone involved in the preparations and the inspection itself. This has included staff, providers, partners and people who draw on support from the Council. We hope the rating will give confidence and assurance to all our residents, including people who are carers for a family member or friend.
We’ve pressed on with the ambitious plans to redevelop Mell Square and capitalise on HS2 with Arden Cross. These large scale developments will provide thousands of homes, right in our main town centre with Mell Square and at the strategically located hub in the case of Arden Cross. We’re determined to progress these plans further and you can expect to hear more about both developments in the new year.
In terms of direct support we’ve given to our communities this year - we’ve invested over £150,000 into Solihull’s voluntary and community sector through the Heart of England Community Foundation. These grants have powered projects tackling social isolation, digital inclusion, community transport, and food poverty, including warm hubs and hot meal initiatives that made a real difference to local lives.
We’ve also distributed £2.4m through the Household Support Fund to thousands of households most in need of support. Our Holiday Activities and Food programme continued to grow, with over 4000 children benefitting this year.
Followers of our social media accounts will have seen our Solihull stands together against domestic abuse campaign, which ran from the summer until the end of November. The campaign, which ran across Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok, was a huge success, generating more than a million impressions overall, with tens of thousands of people visiting our domestic abuse webpages.
I don’t want to go on forever, so I’ll round up a few of our more exciting news stories from the year. Our SCALE project won an award, recognising our leadership in the development of Connected Autonomous Vehicles. We’ve always been proud of our many Green Flag winning parks, but this year saw a first as Malvern and Brueton Parks joined the digital world having been rendered in the popular video game Minecraft by young adults with learning disabilities at Newlands Bishop Farm.
We’ve shut down dodgy shops, supercharged our EV infrastructure, approved our new Council Plan for the next five years, won an award for our Kingshurst social housing development, supported young people with additional needs to take their first steps in the world of work, reopened our wonderful Core Theatre following a RAAC enforced closure and of course, elected our first ever Female Leader of The Council.
After that list I feel like I could end with…. ‘And a partridge in a pear tree!’.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my column since I started in May, and in case you’re already too deep in the festivities to read next week, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
Karen.