Staff Engagement
This week the Leadership Team of Directors and Heads of Service discussed the feedback from the staff survey and the recent staff engagement events.
I‘ve been working with Leanne Cutts and Rhian Millar to identify themes from the consultation and members of the Corporate Management Team have volunteered to lead on these themes.
The themes are: behaviours/culture; new ways of working; breaking down silos/career progression; reward and recognition; workplace and policies; communication/staff involvement and commercial/efficiencies.
I want to ensure that all the comments and suggestions from staff are considered in detail, responded to quickly and are given proper consideration.
Leadership Team discussed each of the themes in detail and we will be publishing the responses on StaffNet as well as distributing them to workplaces across the city.
Budget
We face a few tough months in order to balance this year’s budget and we need all our staff to play their part. I think one of the biggest myths in the council is that if you don’t use your full budget you’ll lose it the following year. That is not true! We do not routinely reduce budgets based on under-spends.
And historically we’ve seen spending increase during the final few months of the year, sometimes on non-essential items. The spending restrictions remain in force and we need all staff to be responsible and work within these rules so that we can balance our budgets.
Our budget consultation is still under way and we’ll be reporting the outcome of this as soon as possible.
Senior staffing
You probably already know that Mike Hawes, Director of Corporate Resources, and Lindsay Harvey, Chief Education Officer, are both leaving later this year. Mike’s retiring and Lindsay is taking up a Director post in Bridgend.
Mike’s post is currently in the process of recruitment and we hope to appoint on January 31. We hope to advertise Lindsay’s post next week and appoint in February.
Trewarren Project
You may remember that some blogs ago I mentioned the fantastic community project that helps people with learning disabilities at the Trewarren garden project. Unfortunately the bid for an Aviva Community Fund award narrowly missed out despite getting nearly 2,000 votes.
The good news is that thanks to the persistence of Lorraine Howells and the team their application for another grant scheme has been accepted. They have been successful in being selected for the Tesco Bags of Help Grant Scheme and the project has been approved.
The project, along with two others in the region, will go forward to a vote in Tesco stores where customers will decide the outcome by voting for their favourite project each time they shop. Voting will take place until January 28 and the winners will be announced by the end of February. The project with the highest number of votes across our region will receive £5,000, the second placed project £2,000 and the third placed project £1,000. So if you shop in Tesco please make sure you cast your vote.
Safeguarding training
Having had face to face training and completed the online modules, I’m now encouraging all staff to complete the training. Safeguarding is one of our top priorities and we’ve committed to all staff undergoing the training. As I found out, it’s online and not too time-consuming so, for those who haven’t already done so, please make every effort to work through it.
Congratulations
It was great to see the announcement in the New Year Honours List that our former Chief Executive, Jack Straw, has been recognised for his years of service to health and local government with an OBE. It is a relatively rare occurrence in local government. When I spoke to him to congratulate him he was unusually modest and asked me to thank all the people who have worked with him during his career and particularly in the City and County of Swansea. In his own words “The award is a reflection of them rather than me. For me it puts the icing on the cake which was an enjoyable career but it has only been possible through the hard work and dedication of others.” Jack has promised to send us a photo providing they let him into Buckingham Palace in a Nottingham Forest football shirt.
The Admiral Swansea Bay 10k has made the final 12 in two categories of The Running Awards 2017: Best 10k and Best Child Friendly Event.
Our staff do a great job in organising and running this event, so please vote at http://therunningawards.com/vote/104/111#vote to ensure this great event gets the recognition it deserves.
Well done to staff in strategic estates for all their work in gifting part of our former Pontardawe Road transport depot to the Swansea Canal Society. The gifting of the land means the Canal Society will be able to reinstate a part of the canal, including a lock, that was buried when the depot was originally built. The rest of the land will be sold at auction, helping generate money that will be reinvested back into council services.
Xmas Quiz
On December 23 the Cabinet and Corporate Management Team formed a number of officer and Member teams to take part in what will hopefully be an annual Xmas quiz.
We held a bring a bottle event at the Mansion House and the Lord Mayor, ably assisted by the Mansion House staff, cooked a magnificent curry for us all prior to the quiz event.
Andrew Taylor, our Complaints Manager, set the questions and performed admirably as quizmaster for the evening. Four teams entered and after a close contest the team I was in, along with the Lady Mayoress and councillors Andrea Lewis and Des Thomas, was declared the winner. The event raised £150 for the Lord Mayor’s charity and I’m grateful to all who helped to support it.
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