Archives for January 2024

I’m challenging all our staff to help the council become greener and save energy and money.

By taking simple housekeeping steps we can reduce energy usage by 10% and save £1.6m on utility bills at a time when we’re facing reducing budgets. Every day we can turn off lights and laptops when leaving, and our premises managers can use the new energy-saving toolkit at the end of this link. For further advice please contact Energy.management@swansea.gov.uk

We can also reduce business mileage and where possible use an electric pool car instead of using our own vehicle. I will be asking managers to review fleet requirements to ensure vehicles are fully optimised.

And from April Welsh Government changes to waste disposal will mean we’ll all have to separate our waste in the workplace. The changes affect our offices, public venues, events, schools and care homes. It means we’ll have to separate items including food, paper, glass, metal and plastics. We’ll be giving more details on this in the coming weeks but it’ll affect our use of work materials and how we dispose of our own food and drinks. I know many staff are already making great efforts to become greener, but with a challenging target of being carbon net zero by 2030 and financial penalties related to the new waste disposal rules, it’s really important we kick on and do all we can.

It’s great to see Swansea Market has been crowned Britain’s best large indoor market by the National Association of British Market Authorities (NABMA). It’s one of the most sought-after prizes at the annual NABMA awards and is the latest accolade for Swansea Market which won the same title in 2015 and 2020. Judges have praised the market for championing local entrepreneurs, its commitment to development, its marketing activity and its rich history. I’m grateful to our officers who manage the market and to the many stallholders who’ve made it a vibrant and welcoming place.

Colleagues across Social Services are doing tremendous work and it’s great to see their efforts being recognised by service users. Over the last year, we received almost 500 messages complimenting individuals and teams for the work they do. There are far too many colleagues to mention by name, but thanks came from relatives of people in our care homes, day service users, teachers who’ve witnessed the support provided to pupils and their families and from job seekers who’ve been helped into employment – just to highlight a few examples of how we make a difference to people’s lives. And linked to this I’ve been on a few visits this week to see how some of our staff are supporting our young people. I called to see staff at Infonation, our Youth Offending Service and the Bays team. It was great to hear first-hand about some of the challenges and also the positive outcomes being delivered in difficult circumstances and I’m grateful to all our staff involved who are doing a great job.

We’ve just agreed a couple of major changes that will help our staff in their dealings with the public and stakeholders.

Our new Customer Charter and Service Standards, agreed by Cabinet yesterday, gives staff clear guidance on how we respond to customers. It includes a series of promises such as responding within defined timescales and using plain language. We also set out how we will deal with customers when they contact us by phone, email, visits and online. The standards take into account how different approaches are needed in different services and teams. It’s important all our staff are aware of these standards so we can live up-to our promises – full details are here.

Cabinet also agreed our new Co-production policy yesterday setting out how we’ll involve the public and stakeholders in some of the decisions we take. There are different approaches for certain situations and the policy is really useful in helping to guide staff on when to inform, consult and co-produce with the public and service users. Co-production happens when we work with others to commission, design, deliver, and evaluate projects and services. We won’t do this every time we develop a new service or policy, but for the first time we now have guidance to help us understand when this is appropriate and useful. Here’s the policy.

Thank you to all the staff who worked on developing these policies.

Our response to last year’s Morriston gas explosion was among the discussions at our monthly Leadership meeting. Our emergency management team gave an overview of the response and lessons learned. Overall I’m really pleased with the way we responded and for the amazing efforts of our staff across a number of services. The review was a chance for us to look at how we better prepare through training etc for other potential emergencies. We’ll also be reviewing our business continuity plans to ensure we have arrangements in place to deal with issues such as loss of power or buildings to ensure we can continue to provide critical services. We also had an update on our progress towards being a net zero council by 2030. There’s been some great work by staff to reduce our carbon footprint, but it’s clear the kind of major changes we need to our fleet and buildings is going to require huge investment that we don’t currently have. To be fair, all councils are in the same situation and discussions have been held with Welsh Government Ministers. There’s a meeting next week to update Cabinet on progress and challenges. In the meantime, please keep up the great work.

Behind the scenes we’ve been developing a better way to log and track our performance across services. The new InPhase system will collect data for our quarterly monitoring reports to see how we’re doing against targets and to monitor risks. There’s also opportunities to use the new online tool for service plans. I’m really pleased with the new-look reports it provides, and I’m grateful to our strategic delivery team for developing it and to those staff who update the system with the latest data from their services.

It was great to see progress on the project bringing new life to the iconic Palace Theatre. The 138-year-old building is due to reopen this year as a new base for businesses and part of the council-driven £1bn city regeneration. It had become dilapidated under private ownership before we bought it prior to the pandemic. During a visit yesterday I saw the remarkable overhaul and I’m looking forward to seeing local people running and working businesses there.

We’ll be saying goodbye to one of our long-standing employees when Deb Reed retires next week. Deb works in social services but has held a variety of roles during more than 40 years with us. Deb will have a farewell gathering in Guildhall room 407, from 12pm to 2pm on 26 January. Best wishes to Deb in her retirement.

Our Cabinet has approved plans this morning to consult on our budget for the coming year. As the Leader has said, it’s a challenging time for all local authorities and that includes us. While we have secured a 3.7% increase in funding from Welsh Government, we still need to find around £25m in savings. A relatively small number of posts will be at risk, some of which are already vacant, but we are working with staff and unions to avoid compulsory redundancies as much as possible. As the budget process develops and discussions continue, it’s expected the figure will go down through initiatives like natural wastage and voluntary redundancy. Managers of affected staff are keeping them informed. If you have any concerns about budget implications for you or your service area please speak to your manager or your union. Consultation goes on until February 11 and I’d urge you to take part, both as staff and residents. A consultation feedback report will go to Cabinet in February with Full Council making final decisions in early March.

This week Julie Davies, our head of service for child and family services, gave CMT a quarterly update on progress in her area. My thanks to Julie and her teams for their work at a time when demand for services continues to grow in the cost of living crisis. Julie’s presentation coincided with the latest meeting of our Corporate Parenting Board which I was delighted to attend. Such meetings help us understand more clearly our role as corporate parents safeguarding some of the most vulnerable in our communities and my thanks to all those involved in this important forum. If you’ve not already done it, please make sure you do your mandatory safeguarding training – you can find the link here.

The Leader, Cabinet Member and I met up with the Swansea BID board where we heard some positive news about a 17% increase in footfall at the Quadrant Centre in the last few months as the city centre continues to recover from the pandemic. 2024 promises to be a busy year with the completion of work on 71/72 Kingsway, with work continuing at Palace Theatre and Y Storfa and the transformation of Castle Square getting fully underway, plus more to come from private sector investment too. We are also working with the police and teams across the council to tackle barriers to progress like anti-social behaviour with positive progress being made so there is much room for optimism. My thanks to BID, our city centre team and staff working on key developments for their commitment.

It was brought to my attention this week that a cyber criminal pretending to be me has been sending phishing emails to our Finance section, asking for payments to a false supplier. Fortunately, it was spotted quickly and the right action taken. But it’s a reminder constant vigilance is needed to protect ourselves and the council from cyber attacks of all kinds. Find out more about your role here.

The Police and Crime Commissioner elections take place in May and our Electoral Services team will soon be looking to employ staff to work at polling stations, supporting postal voting or at the count itself. If you or anyone you know would like to be part of it please email them at electionstaffing@swansea.gov.uk where you can find out more information and your name will be added to their list of interested staff.  

Finally, well done to Jodi Jones at Penlan Library for a clever initiative supporting the local community. She’s created a ‘Help yourself to a hat tree’ at the library from donated hats of all shapes and sizes. In the current wintry weather it’s become a useful addition to what’s on offer at what is already one of our warm Swansea Spaces alongside our other libraries. Let me know if you or your team are working on good ideas that go the extra mile for residents and I’ll share them here on my blog.

Happy New Year to you and your family. I hope you had a good festive period. The first blog of 2024 is a little shorter than usual due to the holidays and it will return next week as normal.

However, as well as wishing all staff a happy new year I wanted to say thank you to all the teams who worked through the very busy December period as critical services we provide on which residents rely 24/7 have to be maintained. In addition, I want to thank our highways, parks and other teams who’ve been out all hours of the night and day in atrocious weather this past few weeks, helping make sure our communities are safe. High winds and extreme rainfall led to flooding all over Swansea, as elsewhere. Gower was especially hard hit in the last week, with our highways team having to deal with roads closed by floods in Penclawdd and south Gower on the route to Port Eynon and other places around the city. The parks service Tree Services Unit (TSU) also had numerous callouts to storm damage during the Christmas period and in one half-hour period on Tuesday around 25 trees were brought down by strong winds. Thanks to the TSU’s commitment, all the roads were cleared on the same day. At times like these, the public can see the difference made by council teams. As always, if you know of any members of staff who deserve recognition for going the extra mile for our residents, please let me know.

As we now move into the new year, the budget for 2024/25 will become a key focus with Cabinet due to meet on January 12 to consider proposals. These will then be consulted on and shared with staff and trade unions prior to Cabinet considering feedback at the end of February and a Full Council decision in March. The budget is always a difficult time so please speak to your manager or trade union if you wish to obtain further information.