Well, the multiple elections are now done and dusted and a huge thank you to all who helped make them a success. It was a real team effort with staff from multiple departments working seamlessly together to organise a safe and proper poll. It wasn’t without its challenges, including dealing with candidates and agents who refused to wear face masks and a very unwelcome fire alarm at around 10pm – just 10 minutes before we were due to announce the regional results at the Brangwyn Hall! This meant everyone had to be evacuated until the fire service had given us the all clear.
A particular thank you to Huw Evans and the elections team who helped us to be the first region to declare both the Senedd and PCC results. As regional returning officer I had the benefit of working with the other elections teams and RROs and I can say with some confidence that ours is the best of them all. And thanks to our DesignPrint team for providing poll cards, ballot papers and posters to very tight deadlines. Since the first lockdown, DesignPrint staff have been on hand for vital jobs like council tax bills, invoices, payslips and a plethora of other letters, when many of their suppliers (and sometimes competitors) had to shut down.
We now have two new members of the Council with Hannah Lawson being elected in Castle ward and Matthew Jones in Llansamlet. I‘m sure you’ll all join me in congratulations and a warm welcome to both.
As expected, there’ve been some Ministerial changes in the Welsh Government with Julie James, our former Assistant Chief Executive, becoming Minister for Climate Change. Gower MS Rebecca Evans has been appointed Minister for Finance and Local Government. We have excellent relationships with Cardiff Bay, so for us it’s business usual. We now expect the move towards regional working and Corporate Joint Committees (CJC) to press ahead. We’re already working on CJC proposals for the City Deal and I hope we’ll be able to share the developing proposals prior to formal consultation. Thanks to Martin Nicholls who’s been leading on this for the region. We’re also continuing to make progress on the new regional model for school improvement and I hope we’ll be able to share this very soon too.
Covid
I’m delighted with the latest figures showing Swansea has just five cases per 100,000 people and that 241,000 have had their first vaccine and 99,000 their second. This is a great effort as we continue to see further restrictions lifted. Next week it’s the turn of indoor hospitality and I’m grateful again to officers who are supporting businesses to re-open safely. I’m also pleased that the Swans’ home play-off game will be one of the forthcoming “test events” which is another step towards returning to normality. Again, thanks to the staff who’ll be working to ensure this game and spectators are managed safely. Although things are moving in the right direction, the advice is to continue working from home where your job allows.
Appointments
On Wednesday the Appointments Committee met to appoint our new Head of Achievement & Partnership in the Education Directorate. Congratulations to Kate Phillips who was appointed to the post at the end of a long and challenging interview process.
Congratulations
The first 20 participants have completed our carbon literacy training pilot, including basic climate science and how to reduce carbon emissions. Thanks to Suzi Richards and Penny Gruffydd for leading this.
Well done to staff and pupils at Penyrheol Primary after winning the Sustrans Wales Big Pedal 2021 competition.
Phil, thanks as ever for your informative weekly blog, they continue to paint a diverse picture of everything the Council is responsible for. Today is day 424 of WFH (yes I’ve been counting, sad I know) and I have a question on what/when/how any form of return to work may look like. By coincidence I had cause to come to Swansea yesterday for this first time at all in 2021 (I live outside of the city) and what a tremendous amount has happened. I was struck by how busy the M4, Fabian Way, the city centre was, with council vehicles going about their business, almost as if life had returned to ‘normal’ but at the Civic Centre and The Guildhall all was still eerily quiet. It’s clear that many of us with principally office based roles have been able to function highly effectively throughout this temporary situation but it was it was always anticipated it would be just that; temporary. Personally my work/life balance has hugely benefitted but I need to make some permanent decisions going forward e.g. when do I convert the dining table back to a dining table rather than desk space, do I sell my car that’s done less than 100 miles in over a year (I normally do that every day!!) when do I tell the dogs I’m going to be gone for more than half an hour? etc. etc. Teams has been a fantastic tool to keep in touch for both business and social contact but there is nothing quite like that spontaneous conversation, work or personal, whist making a cuppa in the communal kitchen. Obviously the pandemic has and will continue to drive our planning but it is clear that our agile/accommodation/digital strategy has been accelerated and flexed hugely and found to be resilient throughout. I therefore return to my question and just wonder if and when we may see some more clarity on what any form of return may look like. PS Happy to WFH until I retire but wife is desperate for all of dining table to become available as she is WFH on the other side!!
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your question. It has been a strange year for us all and the issue of home and remote working has been exercising the minds of Cabinet and CMT. From Monday we go to Alert Level 2 and the advice from Government is that we should work from home if possible. Even at Alert level 1 the advice is to work from home when you can and it is not yet clear when we will reach this level. We will consider carefully the results of the recent staff survey on the subject when developing the approach for the return to work and some form of hybrid working for many people will be an option. We will be having further discussions with councillors and trade unions over the coming weeks and I hope we can provide greater clarity as soon as possible.
Phil.