Archives for February 2024

CMT met yesterday with the regulatory authorities – Audit Wales, Estyn and Care Inspectorate Wales – who monitor the work of public bodies like us to discuss our plans for the year ahead. We welcome robust oversight of our work because it provides valuable fresh perspectives and helps us improve the services we provide to the public. The catch-up was a very positive and productive engagement meeting which looked at assurance processes and risk assessment work we’re planning for the coming year. Despite the many challenges we face, the regulators were very positive about our political and managerial leadership, our commitment to partnership and collaboration and the effectiveness of our approach to corporate governance. As with other local authorities, they were also interested in how we’re looking to meet the challenges of housing and homelessness, transformation, cybersecurity and budget and risk management.

Corporate discussions with regulators might feel far removed from the work you do every day. But the regulators’ continuing confidence against a challenging backdrop is further reassurance that the way you deliver services that touch people’s lives is being done efficiently and effectively. My thanks to you for your ongoing commitment. The outcomes from our meeting yesterday will inform our corporate and service plans going forward and ensure they are aligned with the corporate risk register and performance management framework.

Managers and staff working in Civic Centre and the Guildhall are being given a reminder that they need to be up to speed on procedures to follow in an emergency evacuation of the buildings. Our health and safety team has published new guidance highlighting what managers need to do to ensure staff with impaired mobility are supported with a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP). You can find the guidance here, so if this may affect you or a colleague, please take a look.

Earlier this week I attended a celebration event organised by the Heartbeat Trust UK where Swansea was named the UK’s first Defib-friendly city. Thanks to a lot of hard work over the last few years from officers and members we now have a network of almost 650 defibrillators which will save lives. The council has played its part in achieving this accolade through direct investment and coordination of assets and the charity was very grateful for our contribution. Find out more about defibs in your community here.

More good news this week is that Swansea Arena has been named among the finalists for a Royal Society of Architects in Wales (RSAW) Welsh Architecture Award. My thanks to all staff involved in the scheme.

It’s time to say farewell to Peter Richards, our Building Control, Bereavement and Registration Services manager, who’s worked for the council since 1988 and retires at the end of the month. Peter’s chaired Local Authority Building Control Cymru for the last 13 years, helping develop policy and regulations in this important area. I have taken plenty if advice from Peter over the years and it’s always been valued so a personal thank you for your service, Peter, and we all hope you enjoy your retirement.

It was a very busy Cabinet meeting yesterday at which members were discussing next year’s final budget plans to go to Council, our capital spending programme, the medium-term financial plan and the third quarter revenue and capital budget monitoring report, among others. Full Council will make the final decision on the budget and capital spending at its meeting on March 6th. But the third quarter revenue and capital report is a reminder that all of us still need to do all we can to live within our agreed budgets in the current financial year. The report says there remains huge pressure on services with rising demand and the cost of inflation causing overspends in a number of areas and it will be a significant challenge to ensure we balance our budget this year. Directors and heads of service are working to mitigate overspends, including freezing vacancies and I’d take this opportunity to remind you of the spending restrictions that are currently in force. You can find them here.

Yesterday I was pleased to see Swansea host a visit from the deputy director from the UK Government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Huw Bryer was catching up on the success stories here of investment through the Shared Prosperity Fund and Levelling Up Fund. When I met him, he was very impressed with the work done and the lead role Swansea is playing in the region on SPF. We’ve been really successful in tapping into these funds, attracting well over £20m to boost major projects like the Lower Swansea Valley regeneration programme as well as key community initiatives that support skills training, volunteering and neighbourhood improvements. My thanks to Paul Relf, Richard Horlock and their teams for facilitating this programme and for all the staff involved in ensuring our communities are seeing the tangible benefits of this funding.

I’ll be catching up with the staff engagement group in the next couple of weeks and one of the key topics we’ll be looking at is the upcoming staff survey. We’re working on finalising questions for the survey now, but one of the most important issues I want to raise in it is gauging views on how communication and engagement with staff have been going over the last year or two. There’s been a lot of change since we emerged from the pandemic and there’s more coming as part of our transformation programme. So it’s important that we understand better how well-informed you feel and how engaged you are – or want to be – with change programmes that affect the way you work.

Ironman 70.3, the recent addition to our summertime events schedule, has been voted one of the top three run courses of its kind in the world. The praise comes from the Global Athletes Choice Awards and it also means athletes think there’s no better run like it in Europe, the Middle East or Africa. It’s estimated that IRONMAN – which also includes swim and cycle elements – attracts around 20,000 spectators to Swansea and, together with the World Triathlon Para Series, it’s worth more than £2m to the local economy. My thanks to the cultural services and special events team for helping achieve this accolade.

This week I was very pleased once again to attend Gower College Swansea’s annual apprenticeship awards. This year two of our employees gained top awards, Isaac Fabb and Sarah Bowkett. Isaac, who works for building services, won Foundation Apprentice of the Year. Sarah, who is on secondment to our education improvement team from Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Y Cwm, won the Welsh Champion Apprentice Award 2024 (Pencampwr Cymraeg Gwobr Prentis 2024). Congratulations to them both and good luck to them continuing their careers with us.

Gower College Swansea is a key partner in helping deliver our training programmes at all levels of the council. You are the council’s most important asset. Council apprenticeships are always in high demand, but it’s not just about apprentices as we are looking at broader opportunities across the council as we try and respond to the recruitment and retention challenges we face. Training our existing staff is also crucial and is a key part of our workforce and organisational strategy that’s designed to assist in attracting and retain staff in a challenging recruitment environment. On Wednesday our heads of service got to hear an update from Rachael Davies, our head of HR and OD on progress on the strategy and its next steps. You can find out more about the strategy here and I’d encourage you to take a look at training opportunities on offer here as well.

Budget papers have now been published for next Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. Members will take into account consultation with staff and the public before submitting final proposals for Council decision on March 7. You can find out more here.

It was great to see  a new report this week highlighting our city as the best place in the UK for first-time buyers to set up home. We all know Swansea is a great place to live, but it’s useful to get independent endorsements that prove our point.

This week Adele Dunstan, our Strategic Equality and Human Rights Co-ordinator, and Elliot King, Cabinet Member for Culture, Human Rights and Equalities, have been showcasing our work as a Human Rights City at an international UNESCO conference. The event was commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it was a great honour for Swansea to be invited. Congratulations to them both for the very positive response they received which demonstrates international interest in what we’re doing.

A seal of approval for Swansea of a different kind is news of another major music event coming to Singleton Park this summer called Let’s Rock, featuring major bands like UB40 and ABC. It’s further evidence of Swansea’s growing reputation as a popular destination for major music events and good news for tourism and other businesses. My thanks to the special events and tourism teams for helping make this happen.

And finally, the Welsh Blood Service has just announced lots of places in Swansea where donation sessions are happening over the coming weeks. As you know I’m a big supporter of the service, so if you can give please do.

My thanks to finance officers and other colleagues across the Council who are working on our budget. We all know the financial picture for councils across the UK is pretty bleak, and it brings added pressure for officers trying to help us balance our books. January through to April is such a busy time for our teams preparing the budget for next year whilst managing the last few months of this year’s budget. It’s pretty full-on for Ben Smith and his team so thank you for all your efforts. The consultation on next year’s budget proposals is still under way so please have your say via this link. There’ll be several finance-related reports going to Cabinet on February 15, including the proposals for next year’s budget which will impact on services and staff. I’ll keep you updated as this progresses. In the meantime, given the tough financial situation please continue to follow our current spending restrictions.

It was great to see the work of our local area co-ordinators who provide that vital link between our communities and services. I gained some insight into the service during the community response to COVID, and it was great to meet a few of the team this week. I also spoke to some people who’ve benefitted from LAC support. It’s no exaggeration to say that in some instances they provide a lifeline to vulnerable people. Thank you to Jon Franklin and our LAC team.

Congratulations to our trading standards, food safety and legal teams for two successful court cases. One saw an offender jailed for 5 ½ years for selling illegal tobacco vapes, the other saw a golf club fined £25,000 for health and safety and food standards breaches. This kind of work is painstaking but helps keep us all safe. My thanks to Rhys Harries and the teams for their effort.

Last week I mentioned how we could all play our part to cut costs by reducing energy use at work. Wyn Davies from highways got in touch to ask if we could cut the cost of recharging our electric vehicle fleet by using lower overnight tariffs. I’m grateful to Wyn for the idea and getting access to lower-cost energy through off-peak tariffs is one our team is looking into. But as we’re partners with other councils on a national procurement framework it might take some time to sort out. In reviewing the suggestion I have also discovered that there has been a technical glitch meaning not all ideas have been responded to, so my apologies to Wyn and anyone else who hasn’t had a reply. We will be reviewing the process as part of our staff engagement group.

Any of our staff who deal with freedom of information requests will tell you how much work is involved. We have FOI officers across all our services but the sheer number of requests and the information required puts a strain on staff and leads to some delays in responding. I’m pleased that we’ve made good progress and improvement over the last few months with more than 86% of responses sent within guideline times. It’s a good idea to look at lessons learned and if we can make the process a little simpler. We’ll be issuing some guidance and helpful tips for staff.

The Dementia Hwb in the Quadrant Shopping Centre has just celebrated its second birthday and it was great to be invited to the event and speak to the staff and volunteers involved. It’s a great initiative that we’re happy to support. It’s helped more than 4,200 visitors as well as professionals from Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, and South Korea. It’s probably unique not just in the UK but worldwide, as a drop-in information “shop” challenging the stigma around dementia by placing it in a high street/shopping centre location. Well done to everyone involved and happy birthday!