The latest staff survey results are now published and as usual they throw up a largely pleasing, but mixed picture of views.
Pleasingly, staff perception of the council as a whole has improved compared to previous years and the vast majority of areas have improved and a few have stayed the same. Here’s a selection of results, but full details are via this link:
- 80% of staff would recommend the council as a place to work, up 5%.
- 83% say the council is committed to improving service delivery, up 5%.
- 72% say the council has a clear vision about where it is going and what it wants to achieve, up 8%.
On the issue of bullying the number of incidents have decreased, although there’s a 1% increase in incidents experienced by staff from services users. However, 61% who experienced harassment, bullying or abuse did not report it which is 2% less than last year.
A big concern for me is a third of staff have not had an appraisal in the last 12 months. In the coming weeks Corporate Management Team will be considering how we deal with this, including a review of our on-line appraisal system, and Leadership Team will be developing plans to respond to the survey results.
Thanks to the 2,182 people who completed the survey providing a 26% response rate – 2% more than last year.
To further promote ‘staff wellbeing’ we’re holding a Big Wellbeing Event on January 31 at the Brangwyn Hall. The event will include wellbeing-themed stalls along with council services stalls and charity stalls. There’ll be talks throughout the day from renowned speakers and taster workshops you can get involved in. Details will be advertised shortly.
Staff Roadshows
We’re holding a series of roadshows starting next week to talk with you about the council’s priorities for the coming year and the forthcoming budget.
The roadshow will take the form of a presentation delivered by senior members of staff and will also provide an opportunity to ask questions.
Please make every effort to attend one of these sessions to be able to have your say on our budget proposals, and get a clearer understanding of our approach to meeting the challenges facing the council in the future.
Awards
The awards keep on coming in and it’s a brilliant reflection of our staff and the work they do. In the last few days alone, we’ve had these:
Swansea Museum has been granted full accredited status by the Accreditation Panel appointed by Arts Council England. Congratulations and thanks go to Barry Hughes and the team.
There was great news from one of the public sector’s most prominent awards events on Tuesday night – our Team Around the Family in Schools (TIS) programme won the Learning and Development category of the prestigious Guardian Public Service Awards 2017. Congratulations to all involved! This prize is tremendous recognition for a genuinely innovative, practical and effective service. You can read the Guardian story on TIS.
The Morfa Distributor Road won the Environmental Sustainability Award at the CIHT (Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation) Wales awards. Congratulations to the Highways and Transportation team for their hard work and determination on this project.
And we won the ACES 2017 Award for Excellence for the Accommodation Strategy/Agile programme. ACES is the Association of Chief Estates and Property Managers in the public sector with 300 member organisations. The new agile space in the Civic Centre has more than 200 plus staff working in 141 work spaces. This has freed-up more than 2,000 square metres of space. Significantly, sickness rates for staff working in the agile area hasvereduced from an average of 5 days per person to 0.2 days for the same period last year. Congratulations to Becky Jones and the team. For a second I thought it was Alan Carr presenting the award!
School visits
On a visit to Casllwchwr Primary School I met head teacher, Peter Owen, and Councillor Christine Richards. It’s a great school in a fabulous setting and is one of the happiest schools I’ve been to. I met the children who had lots of questions about what’s happening in the city and the work we do.
The school’s road safety committee raised concerns over the loss of their school crossing patrol. Fortunately, Councillor Richards has a plan to lower the speed limit and introduce a “puffin” crossing from her budget and I promised the children we’d do the work as quickly as we could. Thanks to all at the school for the warm welcome.
I also visited Blaenymaes Primary School to meet with pupils Ethan, Mia and Isaac and hear about the rights respecting work they’ve done. They also told me about their recent meeting with Hillary Clinton that I wrote about earlier this month. Thanks to head teacher Mark Dennis and Helen Spencer who explained the important work she’s doing with families in the area.
Gower power
It’s not just Dylan Thomas who says Swansea is the best place – celebrities, journalists and visitors from all over the UK are heaping praise on glorious Gower.
TV presenter Sean Fletcher has fallen for Britain’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty big-time and his story featured in the latest edition of the best-selling Countryfile magazine. The eight-page feature is just one of the ways our Tourism team pulls out all the stops to encourage people to visit.
And it’s all part of the countdown to next year’s ‘Year of the Sea’ theme, part of a Wales-wide initiative to celebrate our coastal culture, in which the team will be highlighting Swansea’s beautiful, award-winning coastline.
Whilst it is great to see the promotion of Gower, and of course our Tourism team should be encouraging people to the ‘award-winning’ coastline, sadly with the ever increasing budget cuts to the countryside access team (who maintain the footpaths and bridleways), its true to say that in a number of cases the coastline and beaches may even become inaccessible as we are unable to maintain the footpaths which lead to it.
We need to realise that tourism brings in millions of pounds to Swansea and huge numbers (49% according to Swansea Council survey in 2015) of people who visit Swansea do so to go walking, so investing in our rights of way network is surely fundamental to sustaining our tourism economy.
It is ABSOLUTELY vital that people realise how crucial the walking industry and thus the rights of way network is to tourism before it is too late.
Hi Caz,
Yes, Gower’s coastline and the continued access to it for our visitors and residents are vital. In addition to the Tourism spend that it creates, the health and wellbeing benefits promoted by regular walking outdoors cannot be taken for granted. Unfortunately, budget cuts are very difficult, but I am proud with how services have responded to the challenge throughout the Commissioning Reviews process and generally in our pursuit of delivering Sustainable Swansea. In particular, new income opportunities and new models of delivery can sometimes be used to offset the squeeze on budgets. I am pleased with the innovative response to this challenge from our teams across the Council, including the Strategic Planning and Natural Environment Team, who have identified several new income opportunities which will help promote the future sustainability of this important service.