Archives for June 2020

Once again there’s been a huge effort this week by council staff as we continue to ease the lockdown in line with government policy.  Some of you will be aware I’m not a fan of the phrase “the new normal” as it strikes me as an odd paradox, a horrible cliché, and an assumption that we’ll never return to how things were before the coronavirus struck.  Things weren’t particularly “normal” then as we attempted to deal with Brexit, austerity and global climate issues amongst other things.  And from a pedantic view how can normal ever be new or new be normal?  But this week some things did move cautiously towards the pre-covid period.

Schools have been involved in a huge logistical exercise to prepare for reopening on Monday.  There’s been some confusion over the length of reopening but I hope this is now clear. 

Thanks to education and comms staff for preparing a really helpful video that explains to parents and pupils what will happen when they return.  I know some schools had already prepared their own versions and all of those I’ve seen are really excellent.  And thanks to those headteachers who have emailed me directly, raising issues, concerns but generally thanking the Council for its proactive and supportive approach, and particularly to the Education team and Nicole Overton in health and safety for her work. 

The Leader and I joined the staff at Debenhams for the reopening on Tuesday which was warmly welcomed by the shoppers and staff I spoke to.  Re-opening the city centre has taken an immense amount of planning and work and I’d like to thank our staff in city centre management, marketing and events, highways, car parks, cleansing, licencing, health and safety and communications, along with the BID, market traders and major businesses including the Quadrant and Debenhams.

The main issue that I was asked related to the opening of public toilets, which is of course necessary to the proper management of any city centre. Today we’re due to open public toilets within the bus station, Oystermouth, Caswell and Langland.

The coming weeks will be interesting and there‘ll undoubtedly be pressure on the Welsh Government to speed up the pace of the release from lockdown through the review of the social distancing and travel rules, given what is happening in England.  I’m more relaxed about this now that we’ve supported the NHS to create the capacity to deal with a second peak and have introduced a contact tracing system to monitor and contain future outbreaks.  But this does not mean an immediate return to work. You should still work from home where you can and any return to the office should only be with the agreement of your manager.

I, like many of you, have spent some time reflecting on the odd experience of the last few months.  It’s very easy to focus on the negative aspects of what has happened to us, and there remain many risks and uncertainties in the coming months.  But we’ve learned a lot from the experience.  The move to agile and remote working, the impacts on the environment and climate change, and the incredible response from staff and communities to support the vulnerable have been positive developments. 

This week we held interviews for the important role of Head of Child and Family Services following Julie Thomas’ decision to step down later this year.  I’ll say some words of thanks to Julie at the appropriate time but I was delighted that the Appointments Committee decided to employ Julie Davies from Buckingham Council as our new Head of Service.  Julie has a wealth of experience in managing children’s services and I’m looking forward to working with her on continuing our improvement journey.

The highlight of my week was bumping into Lindsay Sleeman, our Events Administration Assistant, on the seafront by the Civic Centre.  I think we have all missed having the personal face to face contact with our colleagues; a thing that Microsoft Teams or social media will never replace.  We shared our thoughts on missing the airshow this year but also our enthusiasm about the future of our city as a great place to live and work.  At least we consoled ourselves that our hugely popular airshow will be celebrated in an alternative way next week. As the real thing won’t take place this year due to the pandemic, officers have developed a digital celebration to take place on Saturday, July 4, from 11am-5pm. Please enjoy it! Full info here.

I look forward to the day when I can see and speak to all of you in person.  In the meantime stay safe and well.

We’re due to reach another important milestone today in returning to some kind of normality.

We, and it seems the rest of Wales, are expecting First Minister, Mark Drakeford to relax the lockdown measures so that non-essential shops can re-open from Monday.

This isn’t really a surprise as Mr Drakeford told retailers at the last review three weeks ago to use this time to prepare to re-open. He’s due to announce the latest review outcome at lunchtime today, and we’ve used the past weeks few weeks to prepare the city centre to re-open for business.

We’ve been holding discussions with partners and the Business Improvement District (BID) which represents retailers and business to ensure we re-open the city centre in a safe way that also promotes and supports traders who’ve closed their doors during lockdown. Our district shopping centres and retail parks will also be able to re-open.

However, the likes of pubs and restaurants will remain closed.

Discussions for the city centre have focused on issues such as social distancing, car parking, public toilets and transport including the bus station which has remained closed during lockdown.

Despite this, it may be some time before things return to the way they were. It’s vital we all work within the restrictions and continue to social distance etc when we go shopping and at all times. We saw last Monday when shops re-opened in England there were some people who ignored distancing rules and ended up in a scrum! We’re taking steps and working with retailers to ensure footfall and queuing are managed properly to avoid similar issues here.

Lisa Wells, our city centre manager, has been leading this work but so many other departments have been involved and I’m grateful to everyone for their input and advice.

This is a massive step for Swansea and hopefully our retailers and businesses, many of whom are independent and home-grown, can begin to emerge from a devastating period for them.

We also need to see whether any other restrictions are lifted as there’s talk around being able to use outdoor sports facilities while retaining social distancing. Once we have the details today we’ll be taking all the necessary steps to support the latest regulations.

On top of this we’re also preparing for schools to return on June 29. This isn’t a full return by any means. Although schools are working on their own specific arrangements, we expect pupils in primary schools to return for just a few sessions rather than anything like what was in place before lockdown. It’s a chance for teachers and pupils to catch up, but there won’t be more than a third of pupils in at any one time. 

Our discussions with head teachers have been very positive and have focused on issues including social distancing, hygiene and safety, drop-off and pick-up and transport for those who need it. Alongside this we still need to provide care settings for children of key workers.

The safety of our children and staff remains our top priority, and once again I’m really grateful to colleagues across a number of teams including education, health and safety, facilities and transport and to our school-based staff.

We’re now recruiting for our tracing team related to the Test, Track and Protect strategy whereby the contacts of those who test positive for Coronavirus are contacted and advised to self-isolate. Our staff can access a test if they have Coronavirus symptoms.

Some more good news came this week with confirmation we’ve had approval from WEFO for our new employability project; Workways+ Short Term Unemployed. It’s an expansion of the existing Workways+ Project which has been successful in recent years. We’ve been working with employers throughout the crisis and already secured work for 23 people. This is needed more now than ever in light of Coronavirus to help those who’ve lost their jobs. Thanks to all those who have worked on this vital project.

And we’ve been recognised for the work we’ve done to support teaching. We’re mentioned in the Evidence Based Education Great Teaching Toolkit which highlights useful information which can be used by teachers. Well done to Rob Davies in education for this work on this.

And well done to Helen Clancy, Kelly Small and Pam Cole who’ve achieved a Wales-first for asylum seekers in Swansea. They’ve worked with the Home Office to ensure children of asylum seekers qualifying for free school meals can have the money paid on to a card so that their family can purchase food. This’ll make a huge difference to them, so thank you for making this happen.

Floods

Our Highways and emergency planning teams were busy responding to more than 80 calls from across the city yesterday afternoon and into the evening due to the flooding. We also delivered sandbags to a number of homes and a care home in Killay that was under threat. There’s also been some road damage in several areas which the Highways team is following up today. My thanks to all involved for their efforts.

Finally, thank you to all of you for your continued efforts. Safe stay.

These are unchartered waters and I don’t claim any expertise but I thought I’d share my personal thoughts on this with you as we move to the recovery phase.

Recovery is dependent upon the control of the infection or R rate locally, regionally and nationally across Wales and the UK.   Monitoring this requires the successful roll-out of the Test, Trace and Protect programme. It will also require the continued compliance with social distancing as lockdown is gradually eased or is re-introduced.   

The availability of PPE for public services will need to be assured, particularly as public consumption of PPE is likely to increase as lockdown eases and in line with Government guidance.  We’re on top of this at the moment but it must remain an area of focus if the use of PPE is to be extended.

Communications from the UK Government have at times been confusing and the approach in Wales has diverged in a number of areas.  It’s important we understand why this is the case and we can get the right message to the public.

The socio-economic challenges we face ahead are worrying given the immediate economic impact and likely recession, including increased unemployment and take-up of universal credit and other benefits.

At the same time the concerns remain about health and social care capacity, particularly as ‘routine’ health services are reintroduced and contingencies for local spikes or future peaks are planned.

For us as an organisation there are many issues to grapple with.  As lockdown eases there will be an expectation that services return to normal but this will depend on our organisational capacity, given the need to continue the shielding programme and to ramp up the contact tracing strategy.  This is at a time when we have concerns about our own workforce’s health and wellbeing.

The return to schools on June 29 presents a huge number of challenges which we’ve discussed with the headteachers this week.  They’ve done an amazing job in ensuring learning continuity and providing educational and wellbeing support to children and young people experiencing a uniquely challenging and disruptive period in their lives.

We need to adapt our organisational workplaces to ensure social distancing whilst promoting widespread remote working.  Many of you must now be wondering when, if ever, we’ll return to the office.   In recent weeks we’ve seen a number of our services in Place return to work, while throughout the Coronavirus crisis the Civic Centre and the Guildhall have remained open with security, cleaners and facilities management staff on site. To do this we’ve had to constantly review risk assessments and systems of work.

However, the prospects for us all returning en masse to the Civic Centre and Guildhall are remote any time soon, given social distancing and potential risks to health.

So we’re now working on proposals, to be discussed with the trade unions, to ensure any future occupation of the civic buildings is in line with social distancing and builds on the good practice already in place.

This will include reducing the amount of available desks. Some of you who’ve been in the office may have noticed that many desks have already been marked with red crosses to identify those we’re planning to take out of action to apply social distancing in the office.

And to identify those staff who need to return to the office, Heads of Service have been asked to look at their areas in detail and to come forward with a business case.

In the meantime, the majority of us continue to work from home. I know this presents challenges for many and I’m grateful for the efforts you continue to make.

And finally, we face a future with precarious public service finances.  There are significant short and medium-term pressures faced particularly by local authorities along with future uncertainty around the UK Government’s budgetary response to the economic fallout of COVID 19 and the impact of Brexit.

Our Recovery Plan will be a significant statement of how we’ll adapt to the environment we now face.  These are massive challenges but if we approach them with the same determination, innovation and vigour that we have demonstrated during the pandemic crisis then I’m confident that we can meet them.

We have already been working closely with schools and other partners to plan for a safe re-opening of schools in Swansea.

Now that the Minister has announced the Welsh Government’s intentions we will continue this to finalise our arrangements and, when ready, schools will be contacting parents and carers directly.

We will also be publicising our plans and will have a helpline available for parents and carers well before the planned opening date. We will have consistent guidelines and will be using these once they are received from Welsh Government.

We will be sharing further guidance from the Welsh Government on managing facilities and logistical arrangements.

The key points that the Minister made are:

• All schools are to re-open from June 29 for a trial and transition period.
• Pupils may need to be brought into schools in very small groups due to social distancing and it is anticipate that no school would have any more than a third of pupils in school in at any one time.
• The plan is to extend the remaining term by one week that means schools will be open for four weeks before the summer break, starting on July 27 with consideration being given to an additional week’s holiday at October half term.
• All schools are being asked to make available a check in and catch-up session for every child to attend over the four-week period.
• Attendance will be voluntary and there will be not be any fines should pupils not attend.
• From June 29 the children of key or front-line workers will attend their normal school.

Since schools closed in March the majority in Swansea have been operating as emergency childcare hubs providing childcare for around 500 vulnerable young people or pupils whose parents are key workers and this will continue in the meantime.

Distance learning via the Swansea Virtual School and other channels used by our schools during the lockdown will also continue.

It has been a magnificent effort by our teaching staff during the lockdown and I do not underestimate the challenges there will be over the coming weeks.  The Leader and I will be in regular dialogue with our councillor and officer Education team to provide as much support as we can.

Thanks

Like many staff, the Contact Centre has been working from home during the lockdown period, operating exactly the same but in a virtual way. They’ve been handling a range of calls from residents, some from vulnerable, anxious and lonely people.   Calls have varied between 2,500-3,000 per week during lockdown. But since 11^th May calls have been between 3,100 and 3,300 per week with the increase being due to some services re-opening and seasonal issues become more of a priority like rats, bees and wasps etc. A big thank you to the team for keeping the public face of the Council running throughout lockdown and adapting so flexibly to the new ways of working.

Our staff, working with partners from voluntary organisations across the city, have been doing an amazing job keeping thousands of families and individuals fed and supported during the crisis.

More than 4,200 families and individuals have received emergency food parcels from the food bank and services network which has stepped up its work during the pandemic.

Additionally, more than 9,000 hot meals have been supplied by the Swansea Together initiative, the Swansea Muslim Community Service and the Sameera Foundation.

This work is being done by Swansea Council, community, partnership and other staff who run four food distribution centres in community centres across the city. These support foodbanks with supplies to ensure they are able to cope with the increased demand. A big thank you to Sue Reed as well as Cathy Williams, Anthony Richards and Brij Madahar for their efforts.

To date more than 60 companies have donated a wide variety of items such as tinned food, art supplies, clothing, baby bottles, duvets, dried goods and pet foods.

All donations are welcome, especially tinned meats, cleaning materials, toiletries, baby foods and gluten-free products. Those wishing to donate can find out more online – www.swansea.gov.uk/foodbanks

Safe in work

As more services begin to reopen, and limited numbers of staff start to return to our buildings it is vital that we maintain focus on some key points to keep ourselves and others safe and prevent the spread of the virus wherever possible.

We must continue to maintain social distancing, good hygiene and follow the risk assessment control measures in place. We should only conduct face to face visits and meetings where there is no alternative and arrangements are in place to socially distance to protect people. There’s more information here.

Full Council

Yesterday we held the first full Council meeting since the lockdown began, once again using Microsoft Teams to get the business done.  It was an excellent turnout and I was impressed by the Members’ grasp of technology.  I should pass on the thanks of Council to all staff who have gone over and above in dealing with the crisis, endorsed by all political groups.  Thanks also to ICT and democratic services staff for helping things to run so smoothly.