This week we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Swansea becoming a City. It has been a very busy week of events, from street parties to a royal visit. Thanks to all who have taken part in or supported these events which do much to raise the City profile in the build up to 15 December, the day Swansea formally received its letters patent from the Queen.
On Wednesday I attended the visit of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall – back in Swansea for the occasion. The weather was perfect and the tide was high across our wonderful bay so when the Prince asked me how I was coping with the job through hard times and austerity I told him that I could be doing it in a worse place, which generated a royal chuckle.
A huge number of people turned up to meet the royal couple including children from St Helens, Brynmill, Christchurch and Oakleigh House schools. The visit culminated in the signing of a commemorative charter, the unveiling of plaques to mark the event, musical performances and the cutting of the 50th birthday cake.
Victoria Park looked fantastic and this is due to the hard works of the staff in the Parks team and my thanks go to them for their efforts. Thanks also to our teams in communications and marketing and special events for handling the logistics so well. A special mention to Joanne Jones and David Price-Deer for the huge amount of work they did in planning the visit.
Next up for our Swansea 50 celebrations is the launch next week of our search to find Swansea’s greatest icon – look out for details.
Regional working
On Wednesday I also attended the executive board for the West Glamorgan health and social care partnership. Much has changed over the past few months as we work with colleagues in Neath Port Talbot and the NHS on the regional transformation of these vital services. We continue to make progress in building a strong relationship with the NHS and the renewed focus on housing is very welcome.
Given the recent noises coming out of the Welsh Government I am convinced that there are some real opportunities to accelerate and improve our regional working partnerships on social care, school improvement and economic development and I will be discussing these with officers and members over the next few weeks. One of the biggest obstacles is travelling across a massive geographical area and I am sure that in the digital age there must be ways in which we can use technology rather than petrol.
I think it is fair to say that local government in Wales has been more vociferous about what it doesn’t want in relation to reform and regionalisation thank what it does. It would be more constructive to offer a proposition to the Welsh Government and I hope that following discussions with councillors we can open a dialogue with our neighbouring councils.
Airshow
As you are no doubt aware this weekend sees the return of the Wales Airshow, bigger and better than ever. I shall be joining the throngs on the beach at what is one of the most popular events in the national calendar. The logistics are mind boggling so thanks to all the staff who are working to make this a fun-filled and safe event for everyone. I know that the road closures, which start on Oystermouth Road westbound from noon today, can be frustrating for many residents but it is a small price to pay when so many people enjoy the weekend.
Thank you
Thank you to all the staff who’ve been working for quite some time on the process for closing two of our small schools – Craigcefenparc and Felindre. The decision to take this step is never easy but we did so for the right reasons. But the process to get to that stage involves many meetings with governors, teachers, community events, inter departmental discussions and a huge amount of research and analysis of facts and figures.
We deal with hundreds of cyber attacks on our ICT systems daily and the importance of having highly qualified technical staff to help defend ourselves against attacks by criminals is critical. That’s why it’s very pleasing to hear we have been awarded the UK Government’s Cyber Essentials Plus status. At the same time we’ve been awarded “Silver” status for excellence in Information Governance.
It’s also good to see our first all-council webinar on Microsoft Teams went well. We now have access to Office 365 and its apps which aim to give us the tools we need to do your job as easily and efficiently as possible. Teams is a great one for communicating and working together. To help you make the most of Teams and the other apps on offer check out the Staffnet guides – and a video of the webinar if you missed it live – at https://www.swansea.gov.uk/staffnet/teams Thank you Matt Knott and others in the team for all their efforts on this.
Awards reminder
Don’t forget our High 5 nominations are now open. You can nominate anyone up to 25 years old so please have a think if you know any young person who deserves an award. Details here.
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