How many of us were using Zoom or Teams to keep in touch with family, friends or colleagues before the pandemic? I know I wasn’t and I can’t imagine many of us were, but the pandemic has forced us to go digital to keep in touch. So much so, Teams has become second nature for holding meetings and keeping in contact.
The pandemic has accelerated our use of digital as individuals but also as an organisation. It’s now a vital part of our day-to-day operation, ensuring continuity of communication and support for rapid decision-making. Future economic prosperity will depend on it and it carries the potential to improve our relationship and communication with citizens and partners. But it’s not without its problems and challenges. Organisations must plan their way carefully in this Brave New World and be clear about how they’ll adapt and employ the technology for the common good.
This week CMT considered an early draft of our developing Digital Strategy which will follow the one we agreed in 2015 following the end of the Cap Gemini contract. The strategy must factor-in issues like digital inclusion, cyber security as well as data and information management.
The strategy has six mission areas to deliver the vision:
1. Joined-up digital first services for people, communities and businesses 24/7
2. Enabling joined-up service transformation
3. Designing services around people’s needs
4. Joined-up data and business intelligence to inform decision-making
5. New models of delivery – regional and national working
6. Digital skills and confidence.
Central to delivering this vision will be a focus on the skills needed by our organisation in a rapidly changing environment and this will be a constant challenge. Where and how we invest our scarce resources through the ICT Development Fund will also need careful consideration, given the competing priorities. But I’m confident that in the coming weeks this strategy will be shaped with elected members to meet the city and the organisation’s needs. Thanks to Sarah Lackenby and Jo Harley for bringing forward this core element of our transformation programme.
Talking of digital, I mentioned previously we’d submitted a bid to the Local Government Digital Transformation Fund and I’m delighted our proposal for smart bins has been successful and now awaits Ministerial approval.
Anti-Fraud Plan
We’ve invested in detecting fraud and I’m delighted that our efforts are paying-off. This is a very important part of our governance process and one which we have invested in more than most of our neighbours. It’s also highly complex and covers a multitude of areas given the breadth and scale of our organisation. CMT considered the caseloads and activities undertaken during the year which were impacted like most things by the pandemic as councils needed to ensure that rapid support packages were delivered to businesses and communities, but with the necessary safeguards in place. This has been no mean feat and my thanks go to Jonathon Rogers and Jeff Fish who have worked so hard to maintain probity. Thanks also to Simon Cockings for taking CMT through the report which goes to Audit Committee next month. But we must remember that dealing with fraud is everybody’s business in the organisation.
Changing boundaries
This week the Leader and I met with the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales to hear their final recommendations for the shape of the ward map for Swansea following a lengthy review. The process is complex and more than three years have passed since the review started. The recommendations are aimed at improving electoral parity, so that the vote of an individual elector has as equal a value to those of other electors throughout the city and county. They also recommend the renaming of some wards.
A number of objections were raised and these were considered by the Commission before finalising their recommendations but they won’t be universally popular. Full details can be found here but the headlines are that the number of wards will reduce from 36 to 32 and the number of councillors will increase from 72 to 75.
This means that many of our systems and databases will need to change and we must make the proper arrangements for the local government elections next year. Thanks to Huw Evans and Alison O’Hara for supporting us through this process.
Clean-up
It was busy last weekend in Townhill for our highways and cleansing teams. They were out in force both days patching roads, cleaning gulleys, fixing pavements, painting street furniture and clearing roadside overgrowth. A big thank-you to all those involved.
C’mon Wales
I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but once again I have to wish our national football team good luck against Denmark tomorrow.
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