Day 25 – 6 February 2014
Last night wasn’t bad at all I’m pleased to say. There were no flaming torches or pitch forks, just a small group of people who are (and have been for some time) interested in getting broadband into Teesdale. Getting provision into the further flung parts of the County was always going to be difficult and they are concerned that they will get left behind for commercial or political reasons.
Broadband in the dales is important for learning, tourism, services, agriculture and all the other myriad of reasons and I was able to reassure them to an extent. My ten minute presentation lasted just over the hour and I even got a round of applause at the end. I was able to answer some of their questions but there were others that I was not allowed to answer due to the complexities of the programme. Within the next few weeks we will have cabinets going live in their area and it is great to finally get something going in earnest.
I think they were pleased that I came to see them on what was a filthy foggy and rainy night.
So I woke up pleased this morning, which was nice as today was all about the Digital Durham programme. Apart from another tier 4 meeting with Hilary my main events were the programme board followed by a meeting with the director and Jamie, our representative from Broadband Delivery UK.
Hilary is the Strategic Finance Manager – Corporate Finance and has managed to get the same word twice in her job title. You can never have enough accountants. She works in making sure that the Council remains financially safe and sound including annual accounts, treasury management, VAT and pensions. She gets to play with an awful lot of money to invest wisely.
She has a fantastic colour coded filing system which provided a fascinating window into her soul: Pink is for final accounts; Green is for Medium term Financial Plan (MTFP); Blue is for pensions and; Grey is for others. You can instantly tell the importance of her work by the relative colours if the files. Today pink was the predominant colour.
The board went well as usual. We have a good story to tell as real progress is being made and the finances are under control. BDUK told us that we were the programme that needed the least nursing nationally and that we were in their top five. Getting eight authorities across two Local Enterprise Partnerships together even to sign a contract was some achievement. Flattery got them everywhere. There is still a lot of confusion around additional grant funding that may or may not be available and that we may or may not be eligible for and this took up the bulk of our meeting with Jamie.
I must say that since he has become our BDUK contact relationships with their department have improved enormously. Working with central government departments has been a new experience for me and he is the perfect foil
Learning points for today: Accountants can be colourful; The capacity for jargon in this industry is un real (what does up-issue mean?) and; Neologize means to make or use new words or create new meanings for existing words and there is a lot of it about.
Today’s enjoyment rating 8/10 – Little time to breathe.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 