Archives for December 2020

As this unforgettable year draws to a close I‘m writing to thank you all for the way you’ve risen to the challenges it presented.  Nobody could have predicted the upheaval caused by the pandemic to our society, the economy and to our organisation.   

I hope 2021 brings us new hope as vaccinations are rolled out and we can get back to some sort of normality.   In the meantime stay well and stay safe.

The main subject of this blog is to pay tribute to a colleague, friend and one of the finest people I’ve met.  You may have heard that former councillor W John F Davies passed away on Christmas Day. 

John was an Honorary Alderman who served Morriston ward for almost 30 years as a Councillor.  He was Lord Mayor 1999 to 2000 and was a former Cabinet Member for Social Services.  I worked with him closely for many years when he chaired the housing committee and latterly in his role as cabinet member   His commitment to care and social justice was immense and he worked tirelessly to improve the lot of others. 

John was well liked by staff and councillors and we should all be grateful for his contribution over many years.  Our best wishes go to his brother Robert, his wife Sarah and all the other members of his family.

So the restrictions we’ll all face over the Christmas period have been clarified by the First Minister this week.  From 28 December, the whole of Wales will be moving to a level four alert, equivalent to a lockdown. Non-essential retail, salons and fitness centres will close at end of trading on Christmas Eve.  Pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants must close at 6pm on Christmas Day and only two households should come together between 23 and 27 December.

This will come as a major disappointment to many who’ve already made substantial sacrifices to their liberties.  But these restrictions are necessary given the current rates of infection across Wales. And here in Swansea Bay we have one of the highest rates in the UK.  The work from home message was repeated by the First Minister and all those who can do so, should do so.

There’s still room for positivity, however, as the roll-out of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine is well under way across Wales.  Here in Swansea our first priority is our care homes where vaccination of staff will start next week. This is obviously fantastic news but staff should remember it doesn’t remove the need for other precautions.  Getting vaccinated doesn’t mean you’re exempt from transmitting the disease to others and even once you are vaccinated, you must still follow all the social distancing, handwashing, face masks and other rules to avoid risk of spreading the virus. And in work you must follow all of the infection control measures including the use of PPE.

I repeat once again that we must all exercise personal responsibility and limit social contact to slow the transmission whilst the vaccine programme is rolling-out.  The Leader and I have held a number of meetings with Welsh Government ministers this week where we’ve consistently reminded colleagues that our staff and those in the NHS are under incredible pressure as they attempt to provide the best standards of care and support, trace and monitor contacts and enforce breaches of the regulations.  We must all do our best to take the pressure off them. 

The time for celebration will come when we have conquered this pandemic.

Storm damage

With the pressures of Covid and Brexit on the horizon our Highways staff could have been blessed with better weather conditions this week but they were once again tested to extremes by the elements. In the words of Roger Mulcahy it was one of the worst he has encountered in a very long career.  Roger was Duty Manager and expressed his gratitude for the dedication of the teams dealing with the floods and everything else thrown at them.  They worked long hours and were literally soaked to the skin.  Everything reported to us was dealt with, which is a credit to them all.  Thanks to Roger, Mike Johnson and all those who helped in checking and dealing with the floods. The weekend didn’t get better for Roger who is a Cardiff City fan and saw his team soundly beaten by the Swans, but given his outstanding efforts I limited the gloating to an absolute minimum.  Well, almost J.

APSE Awards

Our fantastic Environmental Health, Trading Standards and Regulatory Service team  won the Best Service accolade at the annual APSE Awards.   It’s very richly deserved, not simply because of what they do to protect us in normal times, but also for the way they’ve stepped-up during the pandemic. Thanks to the entire team for this early Christmas present. We’re all very proud. If we needed a reminder, this week Trading Standards brought Miller and Carter to court following an investigation which found them misleading customers here and across the UK.. The company pleaded guilty and the judge fined the company £60,000 and awarded us our full costs. Commiserations to those teams who did not win; the judges were clearly having an off day!  But remember there were hundreds of entries so getting shortlisted was a huge achievement in itself.

Xmas Jumper Day

Thanks to everyone who took part and donated to the Lord Mayor’s charity fund. Here’s a selection of some of the pics sent in.

Thank you

We’re all facing a very different Christmas, but that only reminds us of the tumultuous year we’ve all had. Every one of our employees have their own story to tell. I know some of you have sadly lost loved ones, and many of you have battled to support family and friends whilst holding down your job. I‘ve said it many times, I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve all done this year. You’ve been heroic and the people of Swansea won’t forget what you’ve done for them. Despite the restrictions, I hope you all have a restful and enjoyable Christmas – you deserve nothing less.

The next few weeks are critical in the management of the pandemic. As we head towards Christmas there are real concerns over the spread of infection.  The infection rate is at record levels in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. The strain on health and social care services is intense and growing.  The workload of our Test, Trace, Protect team has ballooned and we’re increasing the staffing as rapidly as we can and we may need to redeploy more staff.

This week the Leader and I met with the Health Minister, Vaughan Gething, along with our colleagues from Neath & Port Talbot and the Swansea Bay University Health Board.  We set out our concerns and these will be factored into Welsh Government thinking in the days ahead. 

The message from the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, Frank Atherton, is sound advice: “We are facing a very serious situation. Coronavirus is accelerating. The virus is spreading faster than we could have anticipated and certainly faster than we’ve seen through the autumn months. This is just one Christmas, which I won’t be spending with my children. My main priority is to keep my whole family safe and healthy.  The best way I can do that is to stay at home and have a small Christmas this year.”

Sadly, this common sense approach is not shared universally.  We continue to see examples of irresponsible behaviour and blatant stupidity. This impacts on the ability of staff to cope and we will, for their sake, continue to take a hard line where rules are broken.  We aren’t exempt from this and while the vast majority of our staff have been brilliant, some have let themselves down. The message of personal responsibility cannot be communicated strongly enough and we must all set an example to others.

We’ve also announced that from Monday all our schools will move to blended/remote learning until term ends on December 18. This comes after updated advice from the Chief Medical Officer yesterday evening and representations from primary school head teachers.  

As if that wasn’t enough

This week’s news has been almost equally dominated by Brexit. I’ve previously shared the views of most mainstream economists on the negative impacts of the failure to secure a trade deal. Our internal working group have been planning as best as they can but this may be an impossible challenge.  We continue to work with the Welsh Government to deal with the substantial risks and hope that tangible progress can be made in negotiations with the EU.  But it is time to plan for the worst and hope for the best. 

On the bright side

I’m not a huge fan of Christmas but I’m always impressed by the efforts of others at this time of the year.  Huw Mowbray added to the cheer with an image of how our Kingsway project may look by Christmas 2022.

It’s Christmas Jumper Day so mail your photo entries to staffcomms@swansea.gov.uk.  Please donate £1 (or whatever you can afford) towards the Lord Mayor’s charities.  Who knows, if we get 100 entries I may even don a tasteless Christmas jumper myself (for the first time ever) and share the horror with you in my Xmas blog.

Carers

Our Head of Child & Family Services, Julie Davies, reminded me that of the 562 total number of children and young people we look after, there are currently 185 living with Foster Swansea carers and 163 living with family and friends carers.  Even during normal times our foster carers do an incredible job that isn’t always valued properly by society.  so tonight we’ll light-up he Guildhall as a mark of appreciation for all our Foster Swansea Carers, Kinship Carers and their families. Thank you to each and every one of our foster families and wishing you all a very Happy Christmas.

Congratulations

We’ve been recognised by Ystadau Cymru – a Welsh Government initiative – for our work on agile working and commercialisation of the city centre. Well done to everyone involved. This sort of recognition with Welsh Government will be increasingly important for us as we try to persuade them to support our various city centre hub initiatives.

Well done to our schools that have been recognised in the Estyn annual report. Leaders at Pentrehafod School were praised for developing a tracking system that’s led to better academic outcomes and increased sense of wellbeing for pupils. Birchgrove Comprehensive’s focus on mutual respect and stronger teacher-pupil working has reduced exclusions and increased attendance and punctuality. And at our pupil referral unit PRU, the management committee regular visits has led them to provide better support and challenge to senior leaders to help improvement.

Sad news

Very sadly, we’ve lost one of our colleagues and friends with the sudden passing of Alan Pritchard, a voice engineer in our Digital Services ICT team who worked with us for over 25 years. Colleagues have received numerous messages from across the authority expressing their sympathy and sadness, showing how much Alan was liked and respected. Our deepest sympathies and condolences to Alan’s wife Jo, who is a valued colleague in the Service Centre, Alan’s children and all his family and friends at this very sad time. He will be greatly missed by family, friends and colleagues.

Once again, thank you for everything you’re doing in the face of adversity. I couldn’t be more grateful and proud to be your Chief Executive.

The impact of Covid-19 on cities has been much deeper and more savage than smaller towns and settlements, particularly from an economic perspective.  Over the past 10 years, like many other cities, we’ve been changing our infrastructure in the city centre to adapt to changing retail patterns and environmental issues.  Making city centres healthy places to live and work once again as well as places of cultural and leisure interest is essential, but it’s challenging to achieve quickly.  Thank goodness we made real progress on this prior to the pandemic or the future would be looking very grim.

The news this week about the collapse of Arcadia and consequently Debenhams was not a huge surprise, given that the companies faced challenges even prior to Covid-19 now accelerated by lockdown and social distancing regulations.  Nevertheless, the news is a severe blow to the cities of Wales, with a potentially catastrophic domino impact on other retailers who depend on the footfall created by these anchor stores.  Cities employ tens of thousands of people in retail and hospitality, many of whom now face an even more uncertain future.

But this will also have a wider impact on Wales as a whole.  Cities are the engines of economic growth in the modern world and if the cities struggle, everyone will struggle.

This week the Leader and I met with our counterparts in Cardiff and Newport to agree what needs to be done to help us through this latest challenge.  A comprehensive and significant support package is required.  We can’t allow unmanaged decline in our city centres so we’re calling on the Welsh Government to use all levers at its disposal to protect them including relief on business rates during the pandemic and beyond, increased grant support for the retail and hospitality sectors and enterprise zone status.  Our Business Improvement District partners are supporting us in this and I’m grateful for the proactive efforts of our politicians and officers in making our demands very clear.

We continue to work apace on the mass vaccination programme and this is real reason for hope.  But the economic impacts of Covid-19 will be felt way into the future.  The most important thing we must all do is observe the guidance and the rules coming from Welsh Government.  The rate of infections has been steadily rising. In Swansea we went into local lockdown in September when we had 56 cases per 100,000 people, but that figure is now more than 350! That’s why there’s a need for further national restrictions starting today on what we can and cannot do.  This will become increasingly challenging as we head towards Christmas.  My view is that the Welsh Government should consider extending the current lockdown beyond the 17^th December review date if the rate has not slowed down.  I was hoping that the pressure of work on you all would subside so that you could have some well-earned rest over the festive period, but unless public compliance with the restrictions improves I fear this will not be the case.  We’ll monitor the situation closely in the coming weeks.

Budget

We’ve completed the first round of budget discussions with our Reshaping Board of officers and Cabinet Members. Each director has presented to the board but there’s still a lot of work to be done. The pandemic has brought huge financial challenges and there’ll clearly be consequences for public sector finances in the coming years. We expect the Welsh Government settlement just before Christmas and by mid-January we should have a clearer picture of how things are shaping-up with our budget proposals. But our over-riding priority will be to protect services and jobs as best we can.

We’ve just had some good news on the budget with colleagues managing to reduce the bad debt in social services. At the start of the year the debt stood at £2.1m and has previously been as high as £5m, but thanks to some great work by Chris Davies, Sian Powell, Steve Davies and Michelle Davies in looking at historic debts and agreements with the health sector this figure will reduce to £300k. Thank you to everyone involved.

Farewell

Thanks to everyone who turned up on Teams to say goodbye to Nick Williams, our former director of education.  Under the circumstances it was as good a send-off as we could have given.  A particular thank you to Helen Morgan-Rees for her witty and entertaining Powerpoint presentation.