Archives for July 2022

The past two years have been long and difficult for all of us due to changes to our work and home life and feelings of being under pressure.

Regardless of where we work, we’re all facing tough times, and I know everyone is struggling in some way or another.

This was brought into stark focus at CMT this week when Julie Davies, our Head of Child and Family Services, talked not just about how well her teams are performing but also about the huge pressures they’re facing.  And we know this isn’t just an issue facing staff in this service. All of CMT agreed staff across every team face challenges of some kind. It’s clear staff have been under the cosh for a long time, and it’s not showing any signs of easing as demand for services continues.

I’m aware of this, and it’s an issue I’ll be focusing on and seeing what we can do to help relieve some pressure and support staff.

I can’t promise I can fix every issue because many are out of my and the council’s control, but there are things we can do, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on.

I’ve already asked directors and heads of service to look at issues such as recruitment and retention to ensure we attract staff and also hold on to them which can only help our staff who are already under pressure.

Yesterday I joined the first meeting of our staff engagement group. This is much more than looking at how we communicate with staff. I want this group to raise wider issues affecting them and their colleagues and then work on solutions with me.

I’m also holding a session for staff looking at our culture on August 15. This is another opportunity to shape the way we act as an organisation. Please join me and feed in your views and ideas.

These things are just the start. I want to work with staff across our services to make improvements and put in the best support we can, so please feel free to contact me and make suggestions.

APSE Awards

Another sign of our staff’s amazing work in the face of huge challenges is the number of awards we’ve been shortlisted for. It’s always nice to get recognised by external organisations. And now APSE has shortlisted us for seven awards in their Annual Service Awards, which is a brilliant achievement, even by our very high standards and recent track record with APSE. The shortlisted teams are: the cemetery and crematorium team, recycling, street cleaning, rents, housing, Swansea Market and corporate building services. These award categories cover a range of services and initiatives which goes to show the great work we’re doing in so many different areas of council work. Well done to everyone involved and good luck for the awards in September, which are being held at Swansea Arena this year.

Transport

The way we all travel could be changing in the coming years, thanks to proposals I saw this week. We’re helping develop a regional transport plan that includes early ideas for improving public transport and the railway station, more electric vehicle charging points and creating more high-quality cycling and walking routes. This would help tackle climate change by further cutting the region’s carbon footprint.

The presentation, which was given at the new Corporate Joint Committee for South West Wales, showed the joined-up regional approach will have a greater chance of securing government funding. When details are worked up, they’ll be shared with the public and organisations.

New Corporate Plan

We’ve now got a new Corporate Plan for the next 12 months, which is important as it sets out our priorities and the things we’ll be working on. There are six corporate priorities including a new one focused on addressing the climate and nature emergency. I don’t expect you to read every page, but it’s worth you knowing how this overall plan affects your day-to-day work. We’re also working on a longer-term plan for the next five years, and we will be seeking staff input into its development, so please take the opportunity to have your say.

We’ve published our annual performance report that sets out what a great job all our staff have been doing during the past year.

It shows that 50% of our performance indicators have either improved or remained the same compared to the previous year. Given the continued Covid issues and the growing economic issues we’ve been contending with, these results continue to be strong. These are not normal times, and I’m delighted and grateful that our staff continue to do all they can to provide the best services possible.

Along with performance, budget is the other major issue focusing our minds at the moment. There are big challenges coming our way due to issues like inflation and increased costs for everything we use and buy. Add to this an anticipated squeeze on public finances in future years, and the picture looks pretty bleak. We’re starting the budget process even earlier this year to help deal with these pressures and Heads of Service have been asked to put together proposals for the 23/24 financial year.

Linked to this, I know many staff will be struggling with the cost of living crisis. Specifically, on the issue of pay awards, you’ll have seen lots of media coverage related to rail workers, teachers, nurses etc. The situation with council staff is that discussions at a national level are ongoing and we’re awaiting the outcome. As soon as we know more I’ll update you, and you can also discuss issues with your trade union reps.

Paid Work Placements

We’ve secured funding to provide paid work placement opportunities for unemployed people to gain skills and experience in specific work sectors.  The temporary posts sit above existing structures, which avoids job substitution. Our Workways employability team will provide wrap-around support during the placement to maximise opportunities and to look for work towards the end of the placement. This is a great initiative and is one of our efforts to help people back into work.

Swansea Recognised as Top 5 Green City

It was great to see Swansea named as one of the UK’s top five green cities to invest in. The expert-led independent research scored Swansea excellently in areas including the number of environmentally-friendly office buildings. We are the only Welsh city to feature in the study’s top 10 environmental scores. This is great news in the continuing fight against the climate crisis as we aim to become a net zero council by 2030 and a net zero city by 2050. It demonstrates that the council continues to create the environment for private sector investment and jobs.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Alison Williams, head teacher at Craigfelen Primary School, who received an MBE from Prince William. During her 11 years as headteacher, Estyn has rated the school as excellent and she has run the very successful Enterprise Swansea project with over 40 schools taking part this year. This has led to many exciting projects including funding community play areas, allotments, a community kitchen, gardens, skate ramps and a bank for pupils, their families and residents.

As I have previously mentioned I am keen to ensure we have positive and proactive staff engagement in place, and I am pleased to confirm a new staff group has been set up to improve staff engagement and give you a voice.

The group brings together staff from across the council to look at ways of ensuring staff have the information they need but can also feedback their views and ideas. I will be meeting the group at their first meeting on July 28 and that’s a chance to exchange ideas and agree some priorities. From there I am sure the group will be talking to colleagues to get more ideas, so please join the discussion and give them your views.

Senior changes

Council agreed last night a number of changes affecting senior roles. They agreed to recruit a permanent Chief Executive and a permanent Director of Resources. And with Adam Hill, our Deputy Chief Executive, leaving we are also appointing an interim Director of Resources until the permanent post is filled.

Many of you will know Adam who worked across departments and met many staff during his time. I’d like to formally thank Adam and wish him all the best in his new role as Chief Executive in Mansfield

Another vote of confidence

Following the recent Estyn inspection of education, I had the pleasure of joining the leader and cabinet member along with Dave Howes and Julie Davies as we met Welsh Government to share our ambitions for supporting children and young people to remain living with their families, along with our commitment to enhancing our prevention and early intervention as well as care services.  We highlighted a number of services and initiatives where Swansea is at the forefront of driving change and improvement, such as contextual safeguarding and born into care. We reassured Welsh Government, through sharing our ambition and our transformation journey to date, that we’re very much aligned to their programme for change, including a strong focus on eliminating profit in children’s social care. The Deputy Minister was impressed by our plans and progress to date, and it was a real pleasure for me to learn more about the excellent services we are providing and I want to thank all the staff involved for their efforts every day in this very challenging area

Our human rights

Earlier this week I met with the leader and cabinet members with our partners to progress our plans to become a Human Rights City. This is a huge undertaking and will help support our citizens on a range of issues. For us as a council, we’ll need to consider human rights when planning services etc to ensure human rights feature prominently. In the coming months we’ll be engaging staff and the public to raise awareness of human rights and how they affect us all.

Our priorities

We’ve now got a new Corporate Plan that sets out our priorities for the next 12 months which is an interim document while the longer term plan is developed with the new council and stakeholders. I know this document may not be widely-read, but it’s important as we’ll all be involved in delivering these priorities day to day. The next step is to now work on plans to deliver these priorities in challenging times. Alongside this, we’ve set up five new Corporate Development Committees which replace the former Policy Development Committees to help us develop new policies.

Retirement

Nigel Jones, Head teacher at Gowerton School, retires after over 30 years’ of devoted service in Swansea. Nigel started in Pontarddulais Comprehensive in 1991 before moving to Pentrehafod Comprehensive and then as head teacher at Gowerton in 2016. Nigel has supported thousands of students over the years and his work in developing leaders is noteworthy.  Best wishes in your retirement.

Pupil manifesto

Finally I had the pleasure of attending council last night when pupils from across our city secondary schools came together to outline their concerns and priorities under the umbrella of a pupil manifesto which included suggestions of climate change, equalities, well being and human rights. They were an absolute pleasure to listen to and council fully endorsed their suggestions which we will new review and align to our new corporate plan and corporate priorities.

Following feedback from staff and others we’ve developed a new staff handbook. It pulls together and tells the story of who we are as an organisation, highlights some of the good work we all do and signposts staff to some of the great groups, support and benefits available across the council. I’m hoping it’ll give staff the information and support they need in an easy format. It’ll be updated as things inevitably change. I’m grateful to Marlyn Dickson and others for the work they’ve put into this.

You can see the book prior to the launch here: Swansea Staffnet – Achieving Better Together

Inspection update

Thank you to all our staff who’ve been working to help with the Estyn inspection of our education services. A huge amount of work goes into preparing for this and for those who’ve met the inspectors this week. My meeting with them was very positive and we’ll get the formal outcome in September.

New apprenticeships

We have a fantastic record of developing apprentices and trainees across a wide range of traditional council services, so I’m delighted we’re advertising this week for five new apprentices with our digital services team. It’ll give successful candidates the opportunity to earn while they develop skills and experience for a career in IT. Previous apprentices within the department have progressed to secure full-time positions with us and some have gone on to take degree courses. The posts can be found here with the closing date for applications for the digital apprenticeships being Monday, July 18.

One of my passions is to develop vocational opportunities as meaningful routes into employment and we will be looking at increasing these opportunities across the council through our employability opportunities and our workforce development strategy.

Airshow

Our Wales Airshow returns to the skies of Swansea this weekend when we expect huge numbers of visitors on the prom and elsewhere to enjoy another spectacular. A huge amount of planning goes into this and I’m grateful to everyone involved and those working this weekend to make this another success.

Farewell

Tracey John, one of the Revenues and Benefits Section’s longest-serving Team Leaders retires this week on 30th June after 39 years’ service in Local Government.

Tracey starting working for Lliw Valley Council way back in October 1983 and joined Swansea Council when local government was re-organised. She has worked in the Benefits Section throughout her career. Enjoy your retirement, Tracey.