November Cascade

There’s still time to support our bid to secure city status for Oban. To remind you why it’s a great idea, here’s a fantastic video made by pupils from Oban High School. 

Harbour team save the day

Our harbour staff in Rothesay quickly swung into action to prevent an oil spill spreading and contaminating the bay recently.

The source of the spill was traced to the upper lade at John Street. Working to the council’s oil spill plan, alongside the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, SEPA and Belfast Coastguard, they deployed absorbent booms at the Esplanade outlet and collected the spill. The booms remained in place for 48 hours until the lade ran clear.

Congratulations on a good job well done.

Keeping our ports safe

Last week, we carried out a successful Oil Pollution Exercise in Campbeltown Harbour. We do these to ensure the safety of our ports and harbours and they are audited by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).

On this occasion, we broadened the exercise to include other partners including Border Force, Oil Pipeline Agency, Police Scotland and the MCA as well as the RNLI, Coast Guard Officers and volunteers. Together we tested our processes and communications in handling multiple events at Campbeltown Harbour. Thanks to everyone who made the exercise such a success.

Jim Smith
Head of Roads and Infrastructure

Annual Learning Awards

We held our first Virtual Learning Awards last week to pay tribute to all our staff who have achieved a professional, academic or vocational qualification linked to their role in the last 18 months.

This year’s ceremony gave us the opportunity to come together and recognise both Council employees and our colleagues in the HSCP, who worked so hard to gain an accredited qualification supported by the Council or HSCP.

We celebrated a wide range of fantastic achievements, including degrees, SVQs, Modern Apprentices, Argyll and Bute Manager, professional qualifications, post graduates and many more. The last 18 months have not been easy and so your commitment to gaining these qualifications is all the more impressive Well done everyone on your amazing work!

You can find a list of everyone’s achievements here on MyCouncilWorks Annual Learning Awards – My Council Works

Jane Fowler

Head of Customer Support Services

Supporting our local businesses

Our Modern Workspace

A huge thanks to everyone who has taken part in our online workshops with our design team. We have completed workshops in seven of the eight towns with over 300 of you giving us your expert knowledge of how office space works for you and where you need specific storage and equipment.

We have listened to your feedback indicating that most of you have told us you are keen to continue homeworking with some access to office space.

It’s been invaluable to have your support and input throughout this process as we move towards new ways of working. It’s important we take into account your need, what the public require and explore opportunities to work more closely with our partners.  This is a large and complex project so thank you for your patience as we work though all your comments.

Next steps

Using your feedback, the design team will now create an options appraisal report for each office. The report needs to go through an approval process.

We can then share final design details along with a timetable for starting office works on a town by town basis.

Changing the way we work and how we use our office space marks an exciting phase for the council. After working remotely for so long, we’re looking forward to creating spaces to bring people together safely.

For now, please continue to work from home if you are able. If you need to visit an office, please make sure you have approval from your line manager in the first place and the relevant Site Premises Manager.

Shirley Johnstone
Change Manager