One of the things I’m most proud of is the way we support human rights in Swansea and especially as a council.
In recent years we’ve signed the ‘European Charter for the Safeguarding of the Human Rights’, adopted UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Programme, signed the Dublin Declaration of Age Friendly Cities and Communities and adopted Victim Support’s Hate Crime Charter.
And now we’re about to build on that proud record by signing a Statement of Intent with our partners like the police and health board to become a Human Rights City. York is the only one in the UK and we want to become Wales’ first. The SoI gives us the platform to work with organisations across the city to embed human rights into everything we do.
This is really important because it sets out how we’ll promote people’s human rights in the years ahead. And it’s important to our staff because it’ll impact on you and your family as citizens, but also in your day-to-day work by ensuring our policies and services consider people’s human rights.
This can’t and won’t be done overnight. We see it more as a journey for us as a council and a city. We’ve already got our main partners signed up and it really needs to be a team effort, so over the coming months we’ll be working with organisations and groups to gain as much support as possible.
We’ll be asking the public and our networks what’s important to them and then draft an action plan based on their priorities. We hope to launch that plan on December 10 which is International Human Rights Day.
You’ll all be vital to making this a success and in the coming months there’ll be more discussions about the role you can play.
Regional working
Colleagues in our legal team have been working around the clock to complete the legal agreements which will underpin our new regional education collaboration with Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Thanks to all who’ve helped to support Helen Morgan Rees and me in creating a better and more effective consortium in the form of the South West Wales Education Partnership. We’ll shortly be seeking formal approval for the agreement from our councillors.
Work on the City Deal continues apace as the final tranche of projects head for approval by the Joint Committee chaired by our Leader, Rob Stewart. All projects are wrestling with the challenges of materials shortages and rapid price inflation as well as issues with labour supply. The fact that all projects have progressed in the face of pandemic, Brexit and inflationary pressure is a credit to all the officers and councillors across the region who’ve devoted their time and effort to economic transformation.
Discussions continue on the establishment of a corporate joint committee for south west Wales and we’ll soon be in a position to take formal reports through our governance processes to establish one. Again thanks to all involved.
Covid update
Our services continue to be under immense pressure as the number of positive cases rises further. Our region, along with Neath Pot Talbot, has some of the highest figures in the UK. The impact on our staff, services and schools is huge and we’re doing all we can to support you in these testing times. Please take precautions by wearing face masks and socially distancing to keep yourself safe.
Great work
Congratulations to Megan Stevens who’s been highlighted by the Municipal Journal for her talent and outstanding work. Megan is our Practice Lead for Violence Against Women and Girls and Sexual Violence Partnership Development. Throughout the pandemic Megan has led on the delivery of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) strategy which covers a vast range of projects across children and adult services and the third sector. She’s also set up a group to ensure co-production of VAWDASV services and secured funding for a number of projects across the Western Bay region.
I was delighted to hear this week about the annual Primary Schools Enterprise Challenge. Twenty-five schools and more than 1,000 pupils from Swansea took part and were challenged to come up with products they could sell that would encourage the use of fruit and vegetables. Judges were blown away by the results with a huge range of products produced from vegetable pizzas to games and jewellery. It’s also a great example of partnership working, but I do need to thank Craigfelen Primary School headteacher Alison Williams who made it all happen.
It’s been another outstanding week for the council on the awards front, this time at the Welsh Housing Awards. Our housing team picked up the award for Excellence in Housing Innovation for the Craig Cefn Parc homes as power stations project. As well as that the amazing work we did at Ty Tom Jones to create a safe place for rough sleepers during the pandemic earned us the Working in Partnership award. This was alongside The Wallich, Pobl Housing Association and the Goleudy charity. Well done to all those involved with these innovative projects.
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