Archives for March 2023

I’m very pleased to announce today that we’ve been shortlisted for Local Authority of the Year in the MJ Achievement Awards, the Oscars of local government. It is a rare accolade, but a much-deserved one and recognition of the hard work you do that touches the lives of our residents every day. We’re one of six finalists and the only nominee from Wales.  Yesterday the Leader, Cllr Rob Stewart, deputy leader Cllr Andrea Lewis and I were invited to make a final pitch over Teams to the judging panel of council chief executives from across the UK who will announce their decision in June. The award is for 2022/23, the immediate post-pandemic period and our bid focussed on how our services worked together to transform in a post-Covid world whilst also maintaining our progress on our regeneration ambition and continuing the high standards of service delivery across the Council.

It’s great also that our Building Services’ More Homes construction team has also been shortlisted in the MJ Acheivement Awards’ Best Council Services team category for its work on a new generation of council properties, including the integration of our apprentices in their delivery. My thanks to the communications team for putting our overall Council bid together and to Chris Cutforth and the Building Services team for an excellent submission.  

This week our Test Trace Protect (TTP) team has been preparing to stand down as Welsh Government moves towards the health protection response phase of Covid-19. You can find out more here, but I want to take this opportunity to again thank every single person who worked in the teams and especially team manager Hywel Lewis, who was there from the start. Three years on we still remember just how challenging the pandemic was for us and our communities, and the critical role played by TTP. I’ve no doubt at all the team not only protected lives but helped save them too.

Yesterday a meeting of Full Council agreed to appoint Mark Wade our new Director of Place. He has been serving as interim director, replacing me while I was interim Chief Executive. I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating Mark on his well-deserved promotion and I look forward to continuing working with him in the years ahead.

On Wednesday hundreds of business people attended this year’s It’s Your Swansea business conference and exhibition at Swansea Arena, where the Leader gave a keynote address about our exciting regeneration plans.

Last night the Swansea Sports Awards took place at the Brangwyn Hall. The event is a celebration of excellence and sporting achievement by home-grown talent. But it also serves as an opportunity to recognise the unsung heroes and coaches who work away behind the scenes to create and keep clubs going that enrich our communities and offer opportunities for us all to participate in and enjoy sports of all kinds. My thanks to Jamie Rewbridge and the team for making the event happen and for all of the work carried out on a day-to-day basis

I’d like to say farewell to a number of our staff who are leaving in the coming weeks after many years’ service with us. Among them are Mike Evans and Paul Davies from DesignPrint who have served a collective 58 years, Andrea Smith, workforce manager in the Service Centre who leaves after 38 years and Jayne James, Andrew Winsor and Martin Webborn from Finance who have served more than a century between them. Also leaving us is Kim Bowden from customer services after 39 years, countryside access officer Steve Parry after almost 31 years and Paula Livingstone from Environmental Health, who departs next month after 32 years. Thank you all for your service and we all wish you well for the future.

As Easter looms, I will be taking some leave over the next fortnight so the blog will return in a couple of weeks.

Now the initial emergency is over at the site of last week’s Morriston gas blast, we have moved into the recovery phase. It is clearly going to be a long-term job for us to assist the community and those directly affected. But it’s really heartening to see how the people of Morriston are pulling together to support each other too.

As I mentioned last week, there are many people at the council who are involved in this work who deserve praise for the ongoing support that’s making a difference on the ground. The feedback we’ve had so far has been very positive because our teams have made sure those affected know they are never far from a helping hand. Carol Morgan, Steve Porter and the housing team continue to work long hours to provide support and advice to those still not able to return home. We’ve set up a new Community Support Point for residents at Morriston Library, backed by library staff as well as teams led by Lee Cambule, and local area coordinators Byron Measday and Jon Franklin.

Our cleansing team led by Matthew Bolt have helped clear football pitches of blast debris at Morriston Town FC so matches can resume. Bob Fenwick, Dean Howard and highways staff are pulling out all the stops to ensure there’s access available to residents of Field Close, near the blast site. In addition, there are the things we didn’t think about such as council tax bills being issued to properties which are uninhabitable so my thanks to Julian Morgans for picking that one up. Credit also to colleagues at Swansea Council for Voluntary Service which is overseeing the appeal fund and providing volunteer support and to Wales and West Utilities for their reassurance about gas supplies. I’ll keep you updated as work in Morriston continues and if there’s someone who I’ve not yet mentioned who deserves a thank-you, please let me know.

Social Work Week

Staying with staff who routinely go the extra mile to make a difference in people’s lives, this week we have been celebrating the fantastic work that our social workers undertake each and every day. On Monday, as part of national Social Work Week, we lit up Guildhall green in recognition of our teams’ amazing commitment and dedication. Our staff have also created a number of videos promoting Swansea Social Services as a great place to work which you can see here Gwaith Cymdeithasol / Social Work – YouTube

City Deal

Last Tuesday I chaired the latest meeting of the City Deal Programme Board, where we had a number of updates on key regional projects. These included the homes as power station initiative, the digital infrastructure programme and the regional talent and skills projects. The City Deal has been going strong for a number of years and we’ve benefited already through, most notably, the Swansea Arena project. There are lots to come in future years and you can find out more about the City Deal at this link.

Sad news

As some of you may know June Evans, former councillor for the Llansamlet ward, recently passed away. June served 19 years from 1993 in the old Swansea City Council until 2012. My thoughts are with her family at this difficult time.

Celebrating our staff

There are a number of well-known faces who are retiring in the coming weeks after many years of service with us. Among them are Karen Thomas from Democratic Services and Eric Barrington from Guildhall front desk security who have each been at the council for 39 years. Also leaving are Sarah Thyer, Anne Waldie, Jackie Shoemark and Catherine Owen Smith from the legal team who have between them served 125 years. And the parks team will be saying farewell to Lyndon Havard who has worked in our parks and gardens for 42 years. My thanks to all for their service. If there is a long-serving member of your team who’s leaving whom you think I should know about, please drop me a line.

The tragic events in Morriston this week have once again highlighted the vital role and responsibility we have to our communities. Following the explosion at a house on Monday, the way our staff have responded has been heroic. And it was one of our own who was the first on the scene and rescued a mum from the debris of her home. Keith Morris, who works in our highways team, was in the area when the blast happened. He rushed to the scene and went into the devastated house and found the woman whom he took to safety. He then went back into the damaged house to find her son. Thankfully, he was found by others, so Keith then returned to the property to help rescue the family dog.  I’m delighted to say all three are making a recovery.

What Keith did took tremendous bravery and a selfless disregard for his own safety. It is what heroes do and I couldn’t be prouder to have Keith as a colleague. In our response to the explosion, Craig Gimblett and the emergency planning team of Ben Cromie, Tim Kingham, Shan Cowap, Alex Thomas and Sadie Hapgood immediately set up a Humanitarian Aid Centre at the nearby memorial hall for the dozens of residents who had to be evacuated from their homes. Craig oversaw our response and pulled together staff from across the council. Housing staff, particularly Steve Porter, Marie Muldoon, Sara Evans and Sian Spencer Jones, quickly mobilised to support those residents who couldn’t return home and organised temporary accommodation, while our highways staff led by Jonathan Willicombe made the area safe, cleared debris and have now re-opened the main road. Colleagues from social services, building services, our corporate communications team and our local area coordinators, and many more, have also been on site making the area safe, supporting families and working to get people back into their homes as quickly and as safely as possible. Some staff have literally worked round the clock. That work continues and may not be finished for some weeks. The support from the community has been immense and donations of food and essential items have flooded in.

Thankfully this kind of event is rare, but it’s at times like these that our staff go above and beyond. On behalf of the Corporate Management Team and our elected members, I want to congratulate and thank each of you for what you’ve done this week and what you do every day to support our communities. My thanks also to Swansea Council for Voluntary Services with whom we’ve worked on the ground and also set up an emergency appeal, which is the recommended route for anyone who wants to donate.

Sticking with staff achievements, Alan Evans has clocked-up 50 years service with the council. This is an outstanding achievement for Alan who works in our parks team. He joined aged 18 and since that time has seen many changes and notable events. He’s one of the last remaining employees who were part of the team that won the “Britain in Bloom” title for Swansea in 1983/84. He also witnessed several devastating winter storms in Swansea, most notably in January 1990, when Clyne Gardens alone lost over 80 trees. Alan continues to serve at Clyne where his dedication and enthusiasm are outstanding. As you may recall we have proposed a long service recognition scheme and I hope to be able to provide further details in the next few weeks

Our Heads of Service and CMT met this week and among the topics for discussion was the planned review of absence management. Our sickness levels remain high and we need to understand why and what we can do to bring them down safely over the next year. Part of the actions will include our occupational health team who support staff on well-being and health issues. This is a chance to ensure our policies and support for staff are updated to meet new challenges in a post-covid and agile working world.

I recently undertook some training for my statutory role in future elections and whilst I know we have a great team to run the elections it reminded me that we’re always looking for new people to support us during elections. So if you’re interested in roles or know someone who may wish to get involved at the count or polling stations etc please email for more information to electionstaffing@swansea.gov.uk

Finally, our Human Rights City initiative continues to move forward and we’re planning a meeting of key organisations in Swansea to agree our action plan for the coming year. Also, our governor support officers are facilitating an important event on March 23 that supports our Human Rights City principles. Among the speakers is the granddaughter of Betty Campbell who was Wales’ first black head teacher and a prominent community leader.

It is not often we get snow in Swansea (especially in March!) but once again the response from our staff was outstanding. Our highways maintenance teams kept the city moving and ensured council services could continue. It meant long hours for staff who travelled around the city multiple times, ensuring roads were treated with grit. Staff in other highway-related services and our cleaning teams also switched their focus to winter maintenance duties so we could carry out hand gritting in local communities, ensuring the public were safe underfoot. This also meant our other services could operate as normal, although we suspended waste collection for a day. So a big thank you to all involved for your efforts during these challenging times.

Recognising Long Service

I had a great response to last week’s blog seeking ideas on how to recognise and reward our long-serving colleagues. Lots of ideas came in so we’ll be working through those in the coming weeks and agreeing the best ways of doing this. Thank you to everyone who put forward ideas, it’s just the kind of engagement we need with staff and if you would like me to cover other items in future BLOGs, I would always welcome your ideas.

More homes

Last week I wrote about a special award presented in recognition of energy-saving improvements to some of our existing council homes in the north of the city. This week, we completed the handover of six new council-owned bungalows in West Cross and I had the pleasure of attending and meeting some of our staff involved in delivering the project.

The new homes are all part of our continuing More Homes programme of 1000 new council homes over 10 years which feature the latest innovative technology to help each home generate its own power. It’s important we look to the future and increase our own housing stock so we can provide more quality homes and reduce waiting lists for those wanting to move into council accommodation.

Construction Excellence Wales best practice club also visited the site to see how we’re leading the way in providing zero carbon homes which is another great accolade for us and our staff. It was also great to hear that a significant number of apprentices were involved in the scheme actually building 2 of the complete bungalows and I was reminded that this was common place 100 years ago where plaques still show the construction of Council dwellings by apprentices in Townhill in 1921.

Given our skills shortages such initiatives form a key part of our workforce development strategies across the whole council going forward and key and look out for more news in this in the weeks to come. Well done and thank you to everyone involved.

Transformation

Our new Transformation Delivery Board met this week to discuss the dozen or so projects across the council we have agreed to make improvements to the way we deliver some key priorities. Our new plan will go to Cabinet for approval in April and I’ll use the blog to focus on each of the projects in the coming months as they will have an impact on what we do.

Oracle

We’re now less than four weeks from the go-live of Oracle Fusion in early April. If you’re impacted by this activity, then you will have been receiving emails from the programme team sharing learning materials and guidance about the new system. Please spend some time familiarising yourself with this content ahead of your first log-in. A full list of recent programme communications can be found here.

Community

Despite everyone’s best efforts we’ve had some anti-social behaviour issues in some communities recently so it was good to meet the Police and Crime Commissioner for our quarterly catch-up where we discussed how we could work together to deal with these and other issues. My thanks to our staff who’re already working with police and others in our communities.

Sadly, Councillor Hazel Morris who was first elected to the Penderry ward in 2008 recently passed away. I had a number of dealings with Hazel over the years and she will be sadly missed.

I’ll start this week’s blog with a question: how do you think we should recognise those staff who’ve given the council many years of service?

For me it’s a hot topic because it’s not something that we’ve managed to nail down and do consistently well, despite efforts from many managers to reward and acknowledge staff. We have some staff who’ve given 40 and even 50 years’ service to the council and this kind of outstanding achievement deserves recognition in some way. We discussed this with the staff engagement group this week to get their views. We all agreed we should do something, but there were differing views over what we could do within current budget restraints and recognising that not all staff want the same recognition. It’s another example of one size doesn’t fit all – how many times have you heard me say that recently? Colleagues in DesignPrint have drafted a certificate as a starting point, and the staff engagement group is giving the issue some thought. If you have any ideas please either respond to this blog or send me an email with your thoughts.

The group also returned to the issue of how we can improve communication and engagement with our staff. Communication is usually one-way with managers providing useful information to their staff. But for me, engagement, which is about having conversations with staff and listening to them, is even more important. The engagement group has put forward a number of ideas but like with other things we need differing approaches for our different work areas. For example, the opportunities and ways of engaging our refuse team will probably be very different to holding discussions with our finance staff. So the group will be holding discussions in their areas with staff to get your views. Please join the discussion and as always you can send me your ideas.

Our budget for next year was approved by Council last night so we now have agreement on funding across all services for 23/24. You’ve heard me say recently that this year has been one of the most difficult than any I can remember. I want to learn from these issues and ensure we have a better process next year. I want to thank all staff for their input into this year’s discussions and I’m aware that a number of staff have been affected by the proposals. I also want to thank Ben Smith and his finance team for the outstanding work they’ve done in pulling together the proposals and changes prior to last night.

We’re continuing to reduce the number of mobile phones across the council. This will help save costs as we continue to move to the new Vodafone contract. Some services are looking at using Jabber, which enables staff to make and receive calls through their laptop and reduces the need for a mobile phone. We’ll be doing further work with services to reduce the number of staff using mobile phones, whilst recognising that some staff will need to retain mobiles.

Our project to retrofit energy-saving technology to a number of council-owned bungalows has picked further awards this time at the prestigious awards at the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Building Performance Awards 2023.  This wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of staff within the Council’s Housing and Building Services teams. The scheme is something we’ll use to continue our efforts to be a net carbon zero city, creating more energy efficient homes for the benefit of everyone. This is just the latest accolade we’ve received.

Each week we get compliments and thank you messages from customer across our services. I’m keen that we record these so if you get any compliments please forward them to our complaints team at comment-compliments@swansea.gov.uk