Archives for December 2016

Happy New Year

December 29, 2016 by Martin Leave a Comment

Moving on

Our Chief Education Officer, Lindsay Harvey, will be leaving us next year to join Bridgend Council.

He has been appointed as Interim Director of Education and Family Support. Whilst I’m delighted for Lindsay, he’ll be a great loss to Swansea. Anyone who’s met him will know he’s a larger than life character who always brings a positive outlook.

He’s worked in Swansea for over seven years; first as a school improvement adviser then as our Chief Education Officer. He’s led on a number of important initiatives for us, such as the radical overhaul of our Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) service.

This is a very important post and we’ll be seeking to fill the gap as soon as possible.

Well done and thanks

Safeguarding is the council’s top priority, so it’s really satisfying to see the latest CSSIW report praising our child and family teams for their pioneering work supporting vulnerable children and young people to understand their role and rights in potentially daunting and complex court proceedings. The report can be found here. My thanks and congratulations to the team.

Well done to Carole Billingham who won our Christmas jumper competition. Carole works in the library in the Civic Centre and will receive tickets for the panto at the Grand. A photo of Carole is the first picture in our gallery. Thank you to everyone else who sent in photos – I’m sure you’ll agree it was a tough choice. I know that a lot of money was raised for charity by our staff, so thank you.

Carole Billingham from Libraries

Thank you to everyone who worked or was on-call over the Christmas period.

I know some staff will be doing the same over the New Year break and I’m really grateful to you. I hope it’s not too busy and you can enjoy the arrival of 2017!

It promises to be a very busy year. In February we will be setting the budget and there’ll be much to do following the decisions of Council. In early May there’ll be local government elections. We will also hopefully hear some positive news about our City Deal and the Tidal Lagoon. We can also expect some further statements from the Welsh Government on regionalisation.

I wish you all a Happy New Year, Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas

December 22, 2016 by webmaster Leave a Comment

The Christmas spirit was in full flow on Tuesday when volunteers served a free Christmas lunch to homeless and vulnerable people in the Brangwyn Hall.

It was organised by our Brangwyn Hall caterers, JR Events and Catering, with the support of the Council Leader and staff from across the authority.

More than 130 people turned up for lunch and meals were also delivered to a number of shelters across the city, so thank you to everyone involved for making this a great success.

As we head-off for the Christmas break I want to thank you for your efforts and to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Some colleagues are already on leave, but for those coming in tomorrow please remember to leave work by noon and go and enjoy the break!

I know some staff will either be working or on-call over the Christmas period and we’re all really grateful to you for being around to keep services going and to help those in need. I hope it isn’t too busy and that you can enjoy the festivities.

Just in case you need any help to get into the festive spirit, here’s a video showing what the directors and I do at Christmas!

Have a lovely Christmas.

Season’s Greetings

December 16, 2016 by Martin Leave a Comment

In case you haven’t seen it, the Leader and I have written a joint message to all staff which has been posted on Staffnet – here’s the link. We’re both grateful for the huge effort made by staff across the Council and in all our schools this year. We’ve been presented with many challenges in 2016 and staff should be proud of their achievements in these tough times. The Christmas spirit broke out in technicolour glory yesterday evening at Council with councillors and officers donning a variety of Christmas jumpers ranging from the fashionable to the completely tasteless.

Today is Christmas Jumper Day so I hope to see as many people as possible taking part, again for charity. If you send a photo to the communications team – Maxine.Bromfield@swansea.gov.uk – we’ll award a prize for the most tasteless one and put the photo in the next blog.

Together at Christmas

A free Christmas dinner with all the trimmings will be served up to homeless and vulnerable people in Swansea next Tuesday. This event has been organised by our Brangwyn Hall caterers, JR Events and Catering, led with incredible energy by their director Jessica Rice. Jess has worked tirelessly on this with the Leader and staff from across the authority and I’m grateful for the efforts of everyone who has contributed.

City regeneration

Over the last two weeks staff from the Economic Regeneration team have worked with our development partners, Rivington, to hold a number of consultation events on the proposals for the redevelopment of the St David’s shopping centre. This is a necessary and important part of the planning process recently introduced in the Planning (Wales) Act 2015. An event was held in the Meridian Tower and this was followed by a three-day consultation in the city centre. The Council website remains open for comments and there was a full day for key interest groups in the Grand Theatre on Tuesday. So far there’s an overwhelming level of overall support for the scheme. It’s difficult to gauge the relative popularity of each of the potential uses at this stage but it already appears that the arena will come out as the most popular use, closely followed by sufficient parking, the bridge and restaurants. More than 700 people have visited these events and we‘ve received more than 100 feedback cards. In response to the key question “What is your overall opinion of our initial ideas for the development?” so far 78% are in favour, 5% against and 17% are undecided.

This has been a major consultation programme and I’m grateful to Huw Mowbray, Katy Evans and the Rivington team for their hard work.

Huw and I spent Wednesday afternoon in Carmarthen on the latest of a series of video conferences with civil servants from the UK Government. We were responding to a range of technical questions about the City Deal bid, on this occasion focussing particularly on the economic outputs of the proposed City Digital District. The session went well and we hope to hear some positive news about it in the New Year.

Blaenymaes School

Last Friday I visited Blaenymaes Primary School following an invite from the head teacher Bev Phillips. Bev and I discussed the excellent progress the school has made and the recent Estyn inspection which produced a good/good judgement. The school faces many challenges but has a clear direction and excellent leadership. I then had a tour of the school accompanied by the Head Boy and a Rights Respecting School Ambassador. This close to Christmas there’s an atmosphere of anticipation in the schools I visit, with children undertaking activities related to the festive period. Blaenymaes was no exception and there was a sense of excitement bubbling all around. I also visited the excellent Flying Start provision which is delivering great outcomes in getting the younger children ready for school.

I then took the opportunity to look around the Blaenymaes/Portmead estate which I worked on many years ago. On every council estate I visit there’s work under way on the Welsh Housing Quality Standard programme and this is always an encouraging sight. Sure enough the scaffolding was up on houses in Woodford Road. The massive investment in our housing stock is making a real difference, although there’s still a lot to be done.

Budget

On Wednesday Cabinet agreed the revenue budget proposals for 2017/18 and these will now go out to consultation. The Leader proposed an amendment which related to the scrapping of burial fees for children and we’ll need to ensure this is incorporated in the final report to Cabinet following the consultation period. This follows a high profile campaign by one of our local MPs, Carolyn Harris, sadly based on personal experience.

Business Support

As part of the Business Support Programme and our commitment to modernising working practices, employees and managers are now able to undertake the following functions using Oracle (ISIS):

Appraisals.
Qualifications recording.

For managers with staff currently unable to access Self-Service we’ll continue with the current paper-based process for appraisals. The Business Support programme team is also looking at options to enable colleagues who don’t have access to a council PC and Self-Service, to access all online facilities – including payslips, eye test requests and appraisals – using a mobile device. For online appraisals, please see www.swansea.gov.uk/staffnet/appraisals for further advice and guidance.

Delegation

If you see a delegation from South Korea at the Guildhall on Wednesday I’m sure you’ll make them feel welcome. The visitors from the city of Siheung are on a fact-finding mission about the great work being done in Swansea to encourage children and adults alike to learn about enterprise and what we’re doing to reduce the percentage of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET). They’ll be meeting with officers, Cabinet Members, teachers and pupils. Their visit follows a presentation made by Cabinet Member Cllr Clive Lloyd to the First Meeting of UNESCO Global Cities Network held in Hangzhou, China last month.

Only staff Aloud

The Staff Choir sang in the Civic Foyer last Thursday – it was their first “public” performance and whilst they were very nervous, there was a large audience of colleagues and public watching and supporting them who all seemed to enjoy their performance! It’s a year since a handful of council staff formed a choir following the first ‘It’s all about you’ event last December. Since that time ‘Only Staff Aloud’ has grown in popularity and last week they were able to perform a selection of favourite Christmas songs and carols. The choir has staff from the Guildhall, Civic and Clydach and are happy to welcome newcomers – the more the merrier.

The choir is part of the Helping Hands wellbeing workshops and they practice in the Civic Centre every Thursday lunchtime. Contact Ann Smith for more information: 635031 or ann.smith@swansea.gov.uk

Farewell

Today marks the last working day for Sonia Hansford, PA to the Leader and Deputy Leader and Cabinet Support Officer. On leaving Olchfa School Sonia was employed by the former City Council as a typist in the Environment Department in July 1974. Since 2008 she has worked in the Cabinet Office.

We lose a wealth of knowledge and experience as Sonia leaves, but also a colleague with a great sense of humour who has always been willing to help and support colleagues over the years.

We have a photo of Sonia from her school days – she’s second from left, back row, in the photo below. I hope she has a long and happy retirement.

Thanks Sonia, you’ll be missed by many.

Another colleague who’s leaving is Kim Green, an administration officer in the housing service, after a remarkable 42 years with the council. Kim started work as a 17-year-old in the housing general office on Orchard Street in 1974. I wish her a long and happy retirement!

Thanks and congratulations

Thanks to staff in water safety for their help with the on-going Royal Life Saving Society UK ‘Don’t Drink and Drown’ campaign. As part of the partnership campaign leaflets have been delivered to university accommodation sites across the city, reminding people of the dangers of drinking too much alcohol close to areas of water. An event is also taking place at Castle Square tomorrow evening for pub and club-goers. Also thanks to staff in community safety for their work alongside South Wales Police in putting Christmas cards together with crime prevention tips.

Well done to our Trading Standards Team for their efforts to remove £1 million of counterfeit goods from the streets recently. This goes a long way towards our aims of protecting consumers.

Staff views matter

December 9, 2016 by Martin 4 Comments

Following the recent staff survey and feedback from the Its All About You 2 event, the Corporate Management Team are determined to have staff views translated into action. We received a report this week on feedback from the survey and the recent event at the Marriott and we agreed that all of the feedback would be brought together under themes and that these will be developed into an action plan which we’ll share on Staffnet. We’ll attempt to respond to all the questions that have been asked and publish these too. Thanks to all those who contributed.

Hats off to the individual who complained that they were expecting to meet Bono at the Its All about U2 event. That did make me chuckle!

The Learning Tower of PISA

This week many of you will have read the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. These tests measure progression in maths, reading and science and are run every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). They are taken by 540,000 15-year-old pupils in 72 countries. Wales scored lower than the other UK regions in all three subject areas. Given our economic development aspirations one area of concern is in science where Wales scored 485, England scored 512, Northern Ireland 500 and Scotland 497. The results didn’t make for comfortable reading but my view is they need to be placed in context and not considered in isolation from other important factors and indicators. I think they are only a part of the story but, given their profile, important in influencing perceptions.

The Minister, Kirsty Williams AM, stated that the “further drop in our score mirrors our own understanding of what has happened with science teaching and learning in Wales”. In response she’ll be announcing new ambitious plans to ensure young people can achieve the highest standards in science.

Swansea schools continue to buck the national trend in a number of areas, including science. For example, at GCSE level in physics, 92% of Swansea students attained A*-C grades (91.7% for Wales). In chemistry the results were 92.8% in Swansea (91.1% Wales). In biology the results in Swansea were 90.4% (92.0% Wales).

My understanding from talking to some teachers is that the Welsh Government has already developed strong proposals which need time to bed-in but we’ll await the Minister’s new ambitious plans with interest. In the meantime, we must continue with the excellent progress made by the education team and the schools in the city.

Knelston Primary School

Yesterday I visited Knelston Primary School to meet the headteacher, Phil Jenkins. Phil has been in post since September, having previously been the Deputy at Llanrhidian Primary School. In a very short time he’s developed a clear vision for the school and I was extremely impressed by his enthusiasm and clarity. Major improvements have been made to the school environment internally and externally in a very short period of time. The school has the advantage of a fantastic outdoor environment and there are ambitious plans to improve it even more. The staff team were enthusiastic and focussed on achieving the best outcomes for the children.

The highlight was, as usual, meeting the children who sang three rousing songs from their Christmas concert and then asked me some questions including to the old chestnut “how many schools have you been to and which is your favourite?” Fortunately, having been asked the question on a few occasions, I have now managed to develop a diplomatic response to it. Thanks to Phil, his team and the children for making me feel so welcome, but I was gutted that I had to leave before the Christmas dinner.

Knelston is a feeder school for Bishopston Comprehensive School which you may have read about in the media this week. Bishopston has been named the highest ranked state secondary school in Wales by The Times, with its pupils receiving more A* and A grades in their GCSEs than any other school in the UK. This is an astonishing result. Congratulations to Jeff Bird, his staff team and the pupils.

A New Head for PRU

I’m delighted to announce that, following open competition via a national recruitment exercise and a rigorous two-day interview process, Amanda Taylor has been appointed Head of Swansea Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). I visited Amanda a few months ago in her current role as headteacher of Trallwn Primary School where she has been since 2010. Before that, Amanda was headteacher at Cwm Primary School for five years and had previously gained valuable experience working as a teacher in a specialist teaching facility. As a former local authority adviser for special educational needs, Amanda also brings significant specialist knowledge to the role.

I know she’ll be sad to leave her current role which she’s taken on with great enthusiasm and drive. She’ll leave a foundation of improvement for the school to build on but Amanda will now play a key role in helping us realise our aspirations to make education other than at school (EOTAS) provision in Swansea sector-leading. Congratulations Amanda.

Wales Audit Office

This morning I’m being interviewed by the Wales Audit Office team who are conducting a review into our governance arrangements when making service changes. A number of you will already have taken part in the review. This is an important piece of work which will focus on our commissioning process, engagement with stakeholders and our track record in the delivery of changes to council services. It’ll be some weeks before the WAO produce a draft report, but my thanks go to Richard Rowlands and the team who have been co-ordinating the review for us.

From Chile to Wales

Tonight I’ll be attending a colleague’s book launch at Volcano Theatre on High Street. Jose Cifuentes, who works in our educational psychology team, has written an autobiographical novel based on his personal experiences as a refugee who fled Chile with his wife and baby daughter and came to Wales in 1977. Revolutionary Dreams: From Chile to Wales is a harrowing account of the events he witnessed and experienced as a young man and a timely reminder of the importance of the role Swansea continues to play as a City of Sanctuary. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to others.

Congratulations

We’ve recently won two Fields in Trust Awards – a Getting Active Award for Brynmill Park and a Best Play Initiative Award for Maesteg Park. Well done to all staff involved for their joint efforts.

Congratulations to Josh Wells, currently in his fourth year of a plastering apprenticeship, for making it to the final of the Plastering Skillbuild UK competition. Josh was given a plastering challenge which he had 19 hours to complete, under incredible pressure with many people watching and passing by. Josh can be rightfully proud of reaching the finals, making him one of the top eight apprentices in Great Britain. Well done, Josh!

It was great to read in the most recent edition of State magazine the fantastic coverage about our re-opened Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Swansea’s diverse cultural offer. It reinforced our status as a City of Culture. This hugely positive, six-page article came about thanks to an invite to the magazine from our Tourism team. My thanks to all staff involved.

Our Whitethorns Intensive Day Service team for adults with learning disabilities has already helped Swansea Bay beach pick-up a Trip Advisor award this year thanks to their litter clean-ups. Now the Swansea Canal Society has nominated the team for an “Outstanding Volunteer” award from the Galaxy Hot Chocolate foundation for their work to keep the canal towpath spic and span. It’s great to see their efforts being recognised by other groups and organisations so well done to the team.

Pupils with excellent or improving attendance were invited to the Civic Centre this week for the first ever end-of-term awards ceremony. The Education Department teamed up with local businesses who donated some fantastic prizes for the incentivising school attendance programme. Youngsters around the city who achieved a 98 per cent attendance record or better during the first half of the autumn term or had shown significant improvement were entered into a prize draw and the winners and their families collected their goodies on Tuesday during a very successful event.

A turf-cutting ceremony was held on Wednesday afternoon, marking the start of construction works for a new family centre and GP surgery complex in Mayhill. This will be the first fully-integrated facility of its kind in Wales, coming about thanks to a partnership between the council, ABMU, the Welsh Government and a health and social care specialist developer called Ashley House. This new complex will benefit many thousands of residents in one of Swansea’s most disadvantaged communities. I was involved in this project at its earliest stages and I know how challenging it has been to deliver so my thanks go to all staff who have worked hard to get us to this stage.

Farewell

A week today marks the last working day of Wayne Evans, or as a former Deputy Leader once described him “the Boy from Penclawdd”. Wayne has worked in a variety of posts in the organisation since 2002 and been involved in major projects and programmes to improve the physical activity of children and adults in the city. Happy retirement Wayne.

Business Support pressing ahead

December 2, 2016 by Martin Leave a Comment

At Corporate Management Team this week we received an update on the Business Support Programme, which is making excellent progress. I was particularly pleased to see that we’ve made great strides in reducing the number of abandoned calls in our call centre, implementing employee services and dealing with payments and debt management. Now 95% of calls are being responded to directly, without the need for back office assistance. Thanks to all the staff who are working so hard on our drive to modernise and transform the organisation. There’s still a lot to be done but there’s real momentum at the moment.

CMT also agreed the draft Cabinet report on the budget and this will be released today in time for Cabinet on December 12. If Cabinet agree the report the consultation process will start immediately so that we can present the final proposals in February. We’ve also started the roadshows on Sustainable Swansea and I hope as many staff as possible will attend them. For details of all the roadshows please follow this link.

CMT also had a discussion with Jon Townley, Head of International Sustainable Development and the Wales for Africa Team at Welsh Government, about the international work that the Council is undertaking. Jon explained the role of the Welsh Government and some of the projects they are involved in. This will help us to develop our strategy for promoting the City and feed into our work through the Healthy Cities and UNESCO Learning Cities programmes. We need to ensure that effort is put into those areas which help us with our five corporate priorities and deliver real and tangible outcomes for the city and its citizens.

Staff engagement

I promised last week that following the successful It’s All About You 2 event that further details of what happened on the day would be available. Please follow this link for further details.

Innovation

On Tuesday afternoon I met with Jennifer Clay, CEO of the TechHub based on Wind Street. TechHub creates spaces around the world for entrepreneurs in technology-based businesses to meet, work, learn and collaborate. They provide physical and virtual spaces that enable technology start-ups to work smarter, develop faster and increase their chance of success. It is a global network with bases in Bangalore, Bucharest, London, Madrid, Riga, Warsaw and Swansea.

TechHub are supporting our City Deal bid and Jennifer will be joining the Leader and me when we meet the Secretary of State for Wales in London again this coming Monday. However, I think there’s also a major opportunity for the Council and TechHub to collaborate more generally on innovation and I’ll be arranging meetings soon to explore how we can work together.

Regionalisation

This morning I’m attending a regional workshop on local government reform at the Brangwyn Hall. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government made a statement to the National Assembly in October, setting out broad proposals based on the discussions over the summer with all 22 local authorities. The emerging proposition for structural change is as follows:

The 22 Local Authorities would remain, subject to any voluntary mergers, and would act as the democratic tier which councillors would be elected to and be the front-door for citizens to access services.
Welsh Government would offer support to enable voluntary mergers to take place.
There would be an enhanced level of regional working which would be systematic and mandatory, and include a rationalisation of the multiple footprints on which current arrangements operate.
Two footprints emerged from the summer engagement as having particular relevance: one based around the City Regions and other economic development groupings, which was relevant to functions like strategic transport, strategic land-use planning and economic development; and the other based on the Health Board footprint, which could be relevant to functions like social services, education and public protection. The City Deal discussions will need to address the governance issues and agree a model that is acceptable to UK and Welsh governments.
Welsh Government expect a greater development of shared services.

I’ll keep you informed of how this develops but it is clear the Welsh Government will be encouraging and driving change more quickly than many people were expecting.

Building success

Engineering works have now started on site at Milford Way in Penderry to pave the way for the construction of our first new council homes in a generation. Built to innovative energy efficient and lifetime homes standards, these new properties will inform similar construction projects in future as we look to tackle Swansea’s need for affordable housing and help people cut down on their fuel bills. Thank you to everyone involved in the project.

Great effort

It’s not often our staff get a cake baked by a member of the public as a thank you. But that’s what’s happened recently for our waste staff at Clyne after helping a 73-year-old customer who had an accident on site. The chap is fine thankfully and has shown his appreciation by baking a cake in the shape of a recycling waste skip. Well done to all involved.

Goodbye Kevin

Kevin Anderson, Operations Manager in the Housing Service, is to retire this month after 37 years in the Authority. Kevin started working in Housing in Orchard Street as a temporary rent collector way back in June, 1979.

I have known and worked with Kevin for over 30 years, since I joined the Authority. In that time much has changed, however I know he is proud of the contribution he has made to Housing in Swansea since becoming a housing officer in 1986 in our first decentralised office in Townhill.

Kevin has a passion for football; some of you will know Kevin from his days playing football for the then Union team NALGO, and as a dedicated Swans fan, being an old Vetch field stalwart like myself. I am sure you will join me in wishing him all the very best in his retirement,

I personally would like to thank him for his support and commitment. I know he will be missed by his colleagues. I am sure Kevin will be more than fully occupied with the highs and lows of the Swans and his favourite pastimes of cycling and photography. If he still has his football boots I am pretty confident he could get a place in the Swans defence against Tottenham tomorrow.

Panto season

It’s the time of year when Christmas decorations and trees come out, along with a visit to the panto at the Grand. Sleeping Beauty starts next Friday and runs until January 8.

Among the cast are this year’s Britain’s Got Talent winner Lance Corporal Richard Jones stars, Channel 4 Coach Trip’s favourite Brendan Sheerin, and Kevin Johns in his 19^th Grand panto. I’m not sure if I should say good luck or break a leg but I’m sure everyone will have a great time!