Archives for August 2023

GCSE results were published yesterday and, as with A-Levels last week, it’s great to hear that students at Swansea schools compared very favourably with the rest of Wales. More than 70% of students achieved the higher grades of A* to C in 22 of the 38 different subjects and the top grades of A* and A were awarded to over a third of all entrants in 16 subjects. My congratulations to all those who took the exams and I wish them good luck for the next steps on their journey. My thanks also to our education service, schools, teachers, parents and carers for their commitment and support.

Yesterday I went to Gower College Swansea for a catch-up with their Principal, Mark Jones, and chair of governors, Meirion Howells. It was also enrolment day for new students who’d just collected their GCSE results, so it was a very good time to be there. I mentioned in my blog earlier this year that we’d been named Apprentice Employer of the Year at the college’s annual student awards. The award was a recognition of how Gower College Swansea is a key partner in the training services we offer to our staff to support professional development and our transformation agenda. Many of the courses we offer – from training for mechanics in the transport team to building apprenticeships and manager development – are done with support from the college.

Earlier this week, the Leader, Cabinet member for Environment and Infrastructure Andrew Stevens and I met with Transport for Wales (TfW) chief executive James Price and chair Scott Waddington for an informal discussion about mutual aims and ambitions for our region. It was the first of a round-robin of meetings TfW is doing with local authorities and it was a very positive discussion. Our transport team already play a significant role locally supporting public transport services, so we impressed upon TfW how keen we are to maintain an ongoing dialogue with them to produce improvements for the communities we serve.

Cyber attacks on Swansea Council are a risk to our services. Cyber security isn’t just an IT issue because serious threats can arrive in your inbox from external sources at any time. So we all need to take responsibility for keeping ourselves, our customers and our data secure and the more we know about cyber security, the better protected we will all be. So please take some time to find out more about cyber-related topics like phishing emails, password protection and internet policies, on staffnet. And don’t forget to report cyber-attacks via the report message icon in Outlook or to cybersecurity@swansea.gov.uk

Thousands of people have benefited from the free bus initiative and the £250,000 fund set up to help keep children fed and entertained this summer. Both schemes are coming to an end shortly, but the feedback we’ve had has been very positive. I’d like to offer my thanks to all the staff who worked on these initiatives – they’ve made a real difference in the lives of many families these past weeks.

Thanks also to the staff at Pontarddulais Library, whose commitment and enthusiasm have been noticed by a very impressed visitor who’s taken the time to email me in praise of a community hub that offers a warm welcome and activities for everyone.  

Farewell this week to Jeff Saywell, our Landscape team leader who is retiring after 45 years. His many achievements include helping transform industrial wastelands into Swansea Vale and Llansamlet Business Park and improving our city centre landscape. Thank you for your service Jeff, and good luck in your new endeavours.

Yesterday was A-Levels results day and GCSE results come next week. I want to congratulate all our students, parents and carers, teachers and schools on their achievements this week and wish pupils well on the next stage of their lives. They are excellent results and compare very favourably with the rest of Wales, especially in some of the key areas like maths, where almost half of those sitting the exam got A* or A. There’s more information on Swansea’s performance here.

These are the first exam results of the post-Covid era – a time when exams were suspended and pupils were graded by their teachers. The students getting their results this week faced significant disruption in their education due to the virus and the need to close schools for extended periods of time. I want to thank them and our schools once again for their resilience and dedication during the challenges of Covid. Their contribution undoubtedly helped save lives. Our education team also worked non-stop during the pandemic, engineering the transformation to home education and back again. They have continued to provide outstanding support to schools, teachers and pupils through the recovery and a return to more normal times. My continued thanks go to them too for their sustained effort in such a difficult period.

You may have read in the media that Buckingham Group, the company that built Swansea Arena, has filed for administration. This is difficult news for its staff employed in Swansea and my thoughts are with them. From our point of view the arena is unaffected and we are in discussions with the company. I will keep you posted on developments.

CMT this week got a further report from Julie Davies, our head of Child and Family on progress being made to recruit more foster carers. She said there was a very positive response to my blog post about it a couple of weeks ago, but we still need more potential carers to step forward. It’s such an important area of our work so please help if you can. And do spread the word by sharing with friends and colleagues – you could be helping change a child’s life for the better. You can find out more here about fostering and more here about the support we provide to employees as a Foster Friendly employer.

It’s always great to hear about praise for our staff who go above and beyond to support our residents. Our housing team has just had two letters of thanks from people whose lives they’ve helped turn around. One was from an elderly tenant, expressing appreciation for all the face-to-face assistance she had from the team. She said their kindness and support had changed her life, getting things on track and securing her a home. The other was from an ex-serviceman who’d been sleeping in his car and has now been supported into temporary accommodation with help from Housing Options. He said the team’s empathy and professionalism had made all the difference. I always want to share examples of great practice by our teams in my blog, so do get in touch with me with your stories.

I’ve been keeping you updated on the staff engagement group and its work supporting me and CMT to develop internal communication and engagement across the council. Following my latest catch-up with the group on Tuesday we’re now ready to take a new corporate internal communication and engagement strategy to CMT and Cabinet members in September. It’ll include our plans to recognise and reward staff achievements, including long service – something that many of you have raised with me. My thanks to the staff engagement group and the comms team for their work on this project. If you’ve any last-minute thoughts on the strategy or our approach to recognition and rewards, do let me know.

Site visits

Earlier this week I visited our former district housing offices in Penlan and Eastside to see progress on their transformation into council homes for affordable rent. They were converted from homes into DHOs a number of years ago, so it is apt that they’re going back to what they used to be. My thanks to Carol Morgan, Nigel Williams and the teams in housing and building services for their work providing these much-needed homes in our communities. If you’d like me to come to your workplace for a heads-up on projects you’re involved with, please let me know. It would be a pleasure to drop by.

New appointment

I’d like also to congratulate Carol Morgan on being appointed Head of Housing and Public Health this week. Carol has been serving as interim head of service for the last few months after her predecessor Mark Wade became director of place. I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing Carol well in her new role.

Fostering

This week Julie Davies, our head of Child and Family Services gave me an update on fostering services. The team are doing great work supporting foster carers across Swansea, but it’s clear we urgently need more families willing to provide life-changing support to young people. We’re a Foster Friendly organisation, so if you want to do it, as your employer we will help you. You can find out more here and if you’d like to know what it’s like to work for us and be a foster carer, Lucy and Johnny Martin (pictured above) tell you their story here.

Sponsorship

You may recall that after my recent treatment for blood cancer, I mentioned an intention to do some charity fundraising. Last Sunday I entered the Cancer Research 5k Pretty Muddy Race for Life in Singleton Park and I am surprised to say I managed to complete it relatively unscathed. My next target is to do September’s Admiral Swansea Bay 10k for Blood Cancer UK. It’s a small charity which, from personal experience, provides great support and is doing important research. If you can, I’d be grateful for your sponsorship but, equally, I know many staff are entering in support of their own good causes and my best of luck to all those training for the event.

Thank you

Thank you to Steve Cable, Jacki Rees-Thomas and the play sufficiency team for organising the brilliant National Play Day event at the National Waterfront Museum on Wednesday and my thanks too to all the services that were represented. I attended, as did the Leader and other Cabinet members. It was a colourful, vibrant event packed out with youngsters and their families having a fantastic time. Rightly, the feedback has been universally positive, so well done to all involved.

Also, thank you and farewell to Gaynor Winsor from our finance team after 37 years with us, the last 28 of which have been with the capital projects team. I know your colleagues in finance will miss you and we all wish you well for the future.