One of the major issues for us is to deliver the City Deal projects, especially the multi-million pound regeneration of the city centre. We need the City Deal funding to build the planned Digital Arena and other key development sites. You may have seen the recent adverse coverage over one of the other projects, the wellness village in Carmarthenshire. This led to some Swansea University staff being suspended and intervention by the UK and Welsh Governments which led to a review being carried out. At the same time the City Region joint committee commissioned an independent review. Both reviews looked at the governance arrangements rather than those issues related to the university staff. These have now been published and have recommended changes to improve the governance. At the moment too much responsibility and work rests with Carmarthenshire and it’s recognised other partners have to share this load. But one of the more positive outcomes was the recognition that the business case for the city centre is fit for purpose and will now move forward to the joint committee and the UK government, which is in stark contrast to the wellness village. Although there are still some steps to take, this is great news and I’d like to thank all the staff involved in preparing this business case.
The major item at this week’s Corporate Management Team was ensuring we deliver on next year’s budget savings. We can’t have a repeat of the overspends that have occurred in recent years and it’s vital that we have an oversight process in place where senior members and officers together monitor progress on a regular basis. We have to ensure where savings can’t be delivered that we have alternatives in place as we have to hit the overall target, given that we’ve nearly exhausted our reserves. I’ll keep you updated on progress.
CMT also looked at mandatory training for staff which at the moment looks messy and inconsistent. As always, the dilemma is how we provide it to those who don’t have computer access because some of this training relates to issues like health and safety and safeguarding and there shouldn’t be any excuse for not doing it. I think there’s a lack of clarity about what mandatory training we need to do, and it’s important that staff know what training they should be undertaking. Leadership Team have been given a few weeks to sort this out.
I mentioned last week that officers reacted brilliantly to the sad demise of Dawnus who were our main contractor on the Kingsway scheme and our new Pupil Referral Unit at Cockett. Our staff have been on site this week making it safe and secure and carrying out some works. Others have been putting in place the necessary steps to appoint a new contractor which is now nearing completion. We hope to re-start work on site in the coming weeks and we’re taking similar steps on the PRU scheme. Thank you to all the staff who’ve really pulled out all the stops on this.
After many months of discussion and consultation, the closure of two schools were approved by Cabinet yesterday. Officers and Cabinet have looked at a range of options for YGG Felindre and Craigcefnparc where pupil numbers are very low. We believe this is the best option for pupils, although it’s never an easy decision to close schools. Thank you to all the staff in areas including education, legal and finance for their professionalism throughout.
Finally, I met Mary Sherwood, Cabinet Member for Better Communities, to discuss progress with the poverty forum, a subject which is very important to me. We agreed to arrange a forum in the next few weeks to ensure a continued focus on this work.
Leave a Reply