Archives for September 2023

There’s a saying that “self-praise is no praise at all”. So whilst I’m really proud of the work we do to support people across Swansea, perhaps the most important barometer of our efforts and services is what our customers think and say about us.

So, what do they say about us? Well, we’re not really sure! That’s because we haven’t done a full residents’ survey of how they feel since before the pandemic. Next week we’ll be launching a new residents’ survey asking our customers what they think of our services and staff. Many of you will live in Swansea and it’d be great if you could complete the survey as a resident. The feedback will hopefully help us further improve what we do by responding to residents’ views. It’s also an opportunity for them to rank which services they’d prioritise, and this will feed into our budget discussions in the coming months.

Those budget discussions got under way this week. CMT discussed the overall situation and each director with their heads of service has been finalising savings proposals for their services. Then yesterday CMT and Cabinet worked through each directorate’s strategy and financial position to better understand their likely spending pressures like pay awards, waste disposal, homelessness, home-to-school transport and children’s services. The next step will be a series of meetings in the coming month where directors will present line-by-line savings proposals so that Cabinet Members can agree on which savings should go forward for consultation. At the same time, Cabinet Members will have the results of the residents’ survey to help make those choices. I have to say the likely budget position remains difficult and this is further complicated by the fact that the actual budget settlement for 24/25 won’t be known until late December. But it’s important the work is done in advance so Cabinet and Council can make informed choices.

One piece of customer feedback we’ve recently had is our Pupil Learner Voice Review where we asked pupils about post-16 provision. The results show pupils are satisfied with the provision and feel supported. The survey assists in responding to one of the recommendations from last year’s Estyn inspection around post-16 education and now gives us valuable insight for making further improvements.

Getting customer views on our services is also important to help satisfy the Wales Audit Office who’ve recently told us we could be doing more on this, so hopefully we can show them we’re listening to the feedback to help shape and prioritise our services. We met WAO this week for our quarterly catch-up to discuss our priorities, pressures and risks. It’s important we continue to highlight the work we’re doing but also some of the challenges we continue to face.

Finally, on consultation, we have agreed to run a short staff survey which was an action that arose out of the staff engagement group. But it’s been decided that we shouldn’t run that at the same time as the public consultation process so it will be something we will look at in the new year

Away from this, CMT had an update from Nigel Williams, Head of Corporate Building Services, on the state of our buildings and schools. In short, we have very good compliance across all buildings on issues like electrical, gas and fire requirements. This is rightly a legal requirement and building services, property services and housing along with our wider premises managers are doing a great job in making sure our buildings are compliant and safe.

Congratulations to all staff involved with the iconic Copr Bay Bridge that now spans across Oystermouth Road, linking the city centre with the arena and coastal park. At the Structural Steel Design Awards 2023 in London last night, our architects for the bridge – ACME – won an award for its high standard of design.

Finally, the Boundary Commission for Wales is doing a review of Swansea’s community boundaries and wants your views and ideas. You can find out which community boundaries are being looked at here, but the commission’s plan is to look at changes required to create communities that provide for effective and convenient local government. As council staff you’re very well-placed to make a contribution, so please get involved. There’s more information here: Swansea Community Review 2023 – Swansea

The financial pressures and the need to deliver a balanced budget continues as we enter a critical few weeks in our budget process. You may have already seen Welsh Government warnings over the limited cash it has available and the mind-blowing near £900m overspend in the Welsh NHS. Add to this inflation, high energy costs and the risk of unfunded pay awards and you begin to see the challenge  facing local government.

We met heads of service and senior managers this week to outline the start of the process and some of the challenges facing all councils. Whilst we’re relatively better off than most others in Wales, the budget process will still be challenging and its highly likely that savings will need to found. Directors are pulling together their savings proposals which will go before Cabinet Members in the coming weeks. This is inevitably a very difficult process and I’ll keep you updated as the process develops.

Despite these challenges, our staff continue to do a great job and this is highlighted in our performance in the first quarter of this year. Nineteen of our performance indicators either met or exceeded target. Thank you to everyone for your continued dedication and efforts.

Congratulations

Well done to our Building Services team for their recent success in the annual APSE awards. They’ve been named ‘Best Council Services Team’ for developing innovative, energy-saving council homes under our More Homes initiative.

Thank you to our Highways team who’ve prevented many areas from flooding during this week’s severe weather. We’ve invested in tackling flood hotspots and keeping communities safe, including Morriston Hospital, and this work paid-off this week.

Our Pension Fund continues to top the league table for investment performance which benefits everyone in the council pension scheme. The fund received another accolade by being shortlisted in the UK LAPF awards. The fund has also made great strides in de-carbonising the investment portfolio as it progresses towards its stated net zero objectives. Well done and thank you to Jeff Dong and our team.

Sticking with pensions, Cabinet has approved a new scheme for staff who want to pay additional voluntary contributions into their LG pension. Here’s the Cabinet report and there’ll be further comms to give more details shortly.

School investment

We’re investing a record £176 million in the latest round of our school improvement programme. The next projects being developed are major improvements to Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe and Gowerton School, while work is also progressing to consider options for the former Daniel James site in Mynydd-Bach. At the same time we’ll be consulting on proposals for a new purpose-built school for pupils with additional learning needs and severe autism. The proposals including amalgamating Crug Glas and Pen-y-Bryn and a new school build on a site near to the Pen-y-Bryn site. Thank you to all the officers who’ve worked up and planned these schemes and proposals.

Have your say

I went along to our Poverty and Prevention team’s drop-in session at the Employment Hub in the Quadrant Shopping Centre this week and is was great to meet the staff from both teams who are so passionate about the services that the council is providing and how such services support our residents and communities. 

The council is current consulting on  our Tackling Poverty Strategy and it’s important we capture as many different ideas on how we can all unite and work together to address the issues of poverty in Swansea. I filled in the survey while there and it only took a few minutes so please take the opportunity to complete it and share with your friends and families and wider networks so we can gain as wade a representation as is possible

Finally a personal thanks to our events team for the delivering the Swansea 10k last Sunday in some pretty atrocious conditions. Like many in the Council I took part in the event and managed to finish in a respectable time so my thanks to all of the team for their efforts and thanks to everyone again for the support I have received.

I’m delighted that two initiatives aimed at supporting staff have been agreed this week. For many months I’ve been working with our staff engagement group on developing our internal communications and a scheme to reward and recognise our employees.

Both proposals were approved by CMT this week and we’ll be rolling them out in the coming weeks. It means we’ll have a consistent approach across the council to engaging employees on key issues and also recognising your great work and long service. Both initiatives build on the good work already happening in many parts of the council and they also give managers the flexibility to do what works best in their areas. We haven’t made it too onerous or ambitious. These are phased proposals we can implement from day one and begin to make a difference for our employees. My thanks to the staff engagement group and others who contributed to developing these proposals. We’ll also be sharing with the Trade Unions prior to implementation. These are two great examples of our staff shaping what works best for them so that you and I’ll share final agreed version as soon as I’m able to.

I was at the WLGA conference yesterday with some of our cabinet members where leaders from across Wales heard from First Minister Mark Drakeford and Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance, who updated us on the emerging challenges linked to the current budget. We’ll be meeting Cabinet shortly to commence the discussions on next year’s budget and will also meet with senior managers and the trade unions. We’ll keep you informed as the process develops.

The conference also covered a number of burning issues facing us all. Among the topics was net zero and how we can achieve this ambitious target by making the council and the city carbon net zero in the coming years. This is complex and expensive but we’re committed to achieving this as a council by 2030. We’ve already made huge changes with lots more planned, but it was good to hear how others are tackling this and I’ll be bringing some ideas back.

You may recall we did some work on good growth for cities report published by PWC. I met them on Monday with Mark Wade and Phil Holmes. We’re all aware of the challenges facing cities and local government, but the study suggests Swansea and the surrounding area has the potential to grow faster than Cardiff over the next two years. We’re having further discussions with PWC with a view to aligning their work with our developing vision and strategy for the city centre.

Coincidentally, we’ve launched a new city centre campaign this week. Our comms team has joined with city centre businesses on ‘Enjoy Your City Centre’ to raise awareness of all there is to do in the city centre, from shops, restaurants, cafes and cultural venues to the indoor market, activity providers and live entertainment. Focused on people working in the city centre and the high-quality produce available there, the campaign will run for the next six months or so.

This Sunday will be a special day for me and my family, with two of my daughters joining me for the Swansea Bay 10k. We’ll be raising funds for Blood Cancer UK who’ve been such an amazing support and help to me during the past year. It’s a brilliant cause funding research and supporting those affected by cancer. Sunday is my chance to give something back to them. Good luck to everyone else taking part who will be supporting a range of good causes, and as always thank you to our events team for once again planning what always is a fantastic event.

Since the announcement a couple of weeks ago that the main contractor for Swansea Arena was heading into administration, we took swift action to get alternatives in place. Now that Buckingham Group have formally gone into administration we’ll be continuing our discussions with potential replacement contractors and I’m hopeful we will be able to make an announcement soon. In the meantime, it is still business as usual for the arena. This is an important project for us and for Swansea as a whole and my thanks go to our officers leading the discussions. My thoughts too are with Buckingham staff locally who’ve lost their jobs. I will keep you posted on developments.

The Blue Eden project is continuing to make good progress and on Thursday I met with colleagues from the Western Gateway Partnership who wanted to pick our brains about the scheme. Western Gateway is an economic regeneration partnership of business and public bodies on both sides of the Severn estuary and it is setting up a commission to explore the opportunities around renewable tidal energy in the area.

This week I met with Rachael Davies, Head of HR and OD and Chris Peters-Bond from the comms team to finalise the internal communication strategy and reward and recognition policy before they go to CMT and members over the coming weeks. This ties in with work on the next staff survey, which will also be progressing shortly. I believe internal communication is key in helping make connections between staff across the council, boosting employee engagement and improving services. My thanks to all involved, including the staff engagement group who’ve played an important role in developing the strategy.

Safeguarding is our number one priority so it was good to see the new Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence strategy approved by Council last night. Please read about it here. As council staff, we all have a part to play in safeguarding the vulnerable and the strategy will help us to do that. It will also improve the quality of life for families and victims, as well as support perpetrators and hold them to account.

Y Storfa, the new name for our city centre community hub, was unveiled this week. It’s an important step in the transformation of the former BHS building into a new home for the central library, archive and other services. There will be more announcements in the coming weeks on other public bodies joining us there, so watch this space. My thanks to all those engaged in a project that will be a real boost for the city centre.

My thanks also to all those involved in our £250,000 cost-of-living campaign to support projects providing free meals and events for children this summer. Feedback has been universally positive. More than 65,000 meals were served and thousands more enjoyed free events too.

Our farewells this week to asbestos surveyor Brian Jones who retires after 38 years’ service. Brian started as a roofer in West Glamorgan County Council and has worked in the asbestos team for almost 20 years. I wish to pass on my thanks to Brian who I knew over the years in the various roles he undertook.

Finally, now summer is nearly over I thought it an opportune time to reissue my reminder about wishing to meet up with staff teams in whatever forum you would like. These aren’t intended to be formal but such catch-ups do allow me to get staff views first-hand which I believe is invaluable. Please get in touch if this is something you wish to speak about.

We’re halfway through the year, so it’s worth reflecting on where we are and the likely challenges facing us in the next six months.

I’m really pleased with the progress we’ve made against our corporate priorities. It’s also been great to see the council and our staff get recognition at a series of national awards.

But you may have also seen warnings from other councils about the financial situation across local government. Some councils fear running out of money and having to resort to providing only statutory services.

First of all, let’s be clear that we’re nowhere near that situation. Our financial planning is as good as anyone’s out there, and despite rising costs and uncertainty over government funding we’ve been taking the right decisions and making the right plans for the future. It’s key how this work aligns with our corporate plan and it’s also important that we review our performance framework that supports its delivery. It sounds dry, but this is about making sure we understand how we’re performing and also that our services are having a positive impact on the public. At the same time, we’re reviewing our risk management framework. Again it sounds dry, but identifying potential threats and properly managing the risks will ensure we’re doing all we can to avoid trouble such as service failure or financial problems, which unfortunately has happened in other councils.

So as the summer holidays come to an end our focus now is to start planning for next year’s budget. We’ll be doing a lot of work in the next few months including meeting Cabinet Members, our senior management group and trade unions to discuss the big challenges we face and what may be potential options for providing services whilst balancing our books.

As always, engaging our staff is vital when doing this work. I met our staff engagement group yesterday to discuss how we can involve all our staff, and I’ll be updating you soon. This staff group has played a really important role during the past year in helping develop our staff engagement plans and looking at how we can improve the way we recognise and reward staff. Their ideas will be discussed by CMT in a few weeks and I’ll update you after that.

I’m grateful to the team who’ve been involved in making sure we can complete the work on Copr Bay, following the recent demise of our contractor, Buckingham. They’ve been working round the clock to put alternative plans in place, while Buckingham is preparing to go into administration. As soon as that happens I’ll let you know what we are doing to complete this important project.

I’ve started a series of ward visits to understand some of the key issues in each part of Swansea. I think it’s really important to be in touch with communities and our councillors so that we can support them in tackling issues.

Best wishes to Nick Bird, an anti-social behaviour officer in housing, who’s retiring after 35 years.

Finally, it’s two weeks to go to the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k, which I’m taking part in to raise funds for Blood Cancer UK which seems apt that today is the start of Blood Cancer Awareness Month. Training is tough for an old man with little legs and I’ve got a few aches and pains, but I’m determined to finish and I have roped in Lee Wenham from our Comms Team who will also be running for the same charity and will carry me around if needed! Good luck to everyone else taking part and for all the worthy causes you will be promoting.