The month of April has flown by for many of us I’m sure, and the hive of activity in the City Office continues. With the start of May this week, and summer around the corner, we’ve hit some important milestones and are shaping up well to continue the momentum with which we started the year.

In our update this month, we share news on the City Office core team, highlight some brilliant engagement events we’ve participated in and share an outline for the month of May.

News Round-up

2-4-1 – Meet the new co-Heads of the City Office

On 18 April, the Mayor of Bristol was pleased to announce that following a competitive external recruitment exercise, a Head of City Office has now been appointed for the coming year. The post will be shared between Andrea Dell from Bristol City Council and Ed Rowberry, Chief Executive of Bristol and Bath Regional Capital, on a 50/50 basis from 01 July.

With Andrea’s existing experience delivering the One City Plan and governance framework, and Ed’s experience as a One City partner and a lead on the City Funds project, they are well placed to lead the next phase of the City Office and One City Plan alongside our city partners.

Andrea and Ed are keen to share an update in the next newsletter with an introduction to themselves as well as outlining priorities for the 2019/2020 year.

City Office Core Team – Roles

Alongside this positive recruitment news, we are currently out to advert for a City Office Operations and Stakeholder Engagement Manager (opened on 24 April, closes 06 May) with a further Business Administration role to also be advertised shortly – this is a great sign that the City Office is developing some key capacity and expertise within the team as we continue to make progress this year. This will increase the core team to the equivalent of 3 full time roles for 2019/2020.

Details for the Operations and Stakeholder Engagement Manager can be found here.

Exciting opportunity to join the new ‘One City’ Environmental Sustainability Board

We’re really proud to follow the announcement from the City Office and Bristol Green Capital that we’re now in a position to invite Expressions of Interests to join the new Environmental Sustainability Board (ES Board) – please see below for some more information and how to get involved…

Are you excited to help deliver an environmentally sustainable and inclusive city?

The new ES Board will contribute to achieving One City priorities of being a carbon neutral city, ensuring equal access to sustainably produced food and protecting our natural environment. The ES Board will work with other strategic boards in Bristol to navigate the interdependencies of our city and work towards the key aspirations of the One City Plan.

The open ‘expressions of interest’ process launched today and is running through to 9am on 20 May 2019.

You can find out more information about how to submit an EOI here.

Last chance to contribute to the Bristol SDG Survey – A Local Voluntary Review (VLR)

We highlighted last month the SDG survey being led by our University of Bristol partners – there has been great response to this with over 100 submissions so far, and if you are quick you can still participate (closes early next week!) by following this link. More information about this local review can be found on this Cabot Institute webpage.

Engagement Activities

April was another busy month for engagement meetings, 2 key highlights meant we were able to get out and about to meet with key groups and networks and have some really important conversations about the One City Plan and how they relate to priorities for Bristol’s younger generation and BAME communities.

On 17 April, we crossed over the River Severn and into the Forest of Dean to hold a workshop session with the Bristol City Youth Council during their annual half-term residency. Together we explored the themes within the One City Plan and what their visions for 2050 were – a not too distant future which they will soon inherit from our generation today. The young people in the Youth Council are all highly passionate and energised and we identified many ways in which their own 2019/2020 priorities align with the aims of the One City Plan, including; Environment and Transport, Youth Voice, Community Safety, Mental Health and Equal Bristol.

On 29 April, we were invited to join a Black Southwest Network meeting at St. Pauls Learning Centre to discuss the One City Plan within the contexts of local communities. We had some really important conversations about positive actions we can take to further the relevance of the One City Plan at a neighbourhood and community levels.

Thanks to both Bristol City Youth Council and BSWN for the invites to these sessions. We are building all of this experience into the development of a full 2019/2020 Engagement and Communications Strategy (just one of the key priorities for the new Operations and Stakeholder Engagement Manager).

Note on the May City Office Drop-in Session

One thing to note is that we’ve moved the May drop-in session on Affordable Childcare to Tuesday 18 June. This is as there are some key city events we are planning between now and then and we’d like to be a little further along with these activities before holding the drop-in session! The bonus is that June is a bumper drop-in month with Tuesday 04 June – Street Conflict and Tuesday 18 June – Affordable Childcare.

If you would like any further information on any of the above items, or would like to get in contact with the City Office, please email us at hello@bristolcityoffice.com